UC-NRLF 


B    3    flM 


u 


C1NN  W  COMPANY 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE        ' 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


FLOWERS  AND  THEIR  FRIENDS 


BY 


MARGARET   WARNER   MORLEY 

\\ 

AUTHOR  OF  "  SEED-BABIES,"   "  A  FEW  FAMILIAR  FLOWERS,"  ETC. 


GINN  &  COMPANY 

BOSTON  •  NEW  YORK  •  CHICAGO  •  LONDON 


BIOLOGY 

LIBRARY 

G 


fi£«E«AL 


COPYRIGHT,  1897,  BY 
MARGARET  WARNER  MORLEY 


ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 
36.4 


GINN   &   COMPANY  •  PRO- 
PRIETORS •  BOSTON  •  U.S.A. 


A  LETTER 

TO  THE  READERS  OF  THIS  BOOK. 


DEAR  CHILDREN,  - 

It  would  be  very  stupid  indeed  to  try  to  read  a  book 
written  in  Arabic  or  Hebrew  ;  we  should  soon  tire  and 
put  it  down. 

It  is  just  as  uninteresting  to  read  English  words  whose 
meaning  we  do  not  understand  ;  we  might  as  well  devote 
ourselves  to  a  foreign  and  unknown  tongue. 

I  hope  you  will  never  do  it.  If  you  do  not  know  what 
a  word  means,  find  out.  There  is  a  list  of  words  you  may 
not  know  at  the  back  of  this  book  to  help  you.  They  are 
all  words  used  in  the  book,  and  if  you  look  you  may  not 
find  them  as  stupid  as  you  think.  Some  day  you  will 
discover  that  the  dictionary  is  quite  an  exciting  and  inter- 
esting volume. 

Meantime  enjoy  the  flowers  and  their  insect  friends  all 
you  can,  and  be  sure  you  know  the  meaning  of  all  the 
words  that  tell  about  them. 

Your  friend, 

THE  AUTHOR. 

189774 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

MORNING-GLORY  STORIES  .        .  1 
THE  FLOWER 

THIS  is  THE  FLOWER  so  BRIGHT  AND  GAY  .  11 

THE  CALYX  .  .13 
BLOSSOM  DEAR.         ... 

WHAT  HAPPENED  IN  THE  GARDEN      .  .     16 
THE  OVULES     . 

THE  LEAVES.  -     27 

To  THE  MORNING-GLORY  .  .29 

THE  CONVOLVULUS  FAMILY  .     30 

STORIES  ABOUT  THE  GERANIUM  FAMILY      r  47 
TROP^KOLUM  STORIES  : 

TROP^OLUM  HONEY      .                  .  .49 

THE  TROP.EOLUM .•         50 

WHO    LIES    CURLED    UP  .            ,     .       .            .            .  .            -57 

MORE  ABOUT  THE  TROP.EOLUM       ,        ^       ...  58 
JEWELWEED  STORIES  : 

A  DAINTY  CAVE            «        .  .65 
TOUCH-ME-NOT  .         ...        ... 

EARDROPS       .         .        .        •     *  •        •        •  *         -71 

LADY'S  SLIPPER          .        ...        •        •  •         72 

THE  HUMMING  BIRP    ,        ,        ,        t        •  t        »    74 


vi  CONTENTS. 

PELARGONIUM  STORIES:  PAGE 

THE  PELARGONIUMS          .        .        •        •        •        •         75 

AN  AFRICAN 80 

PELARGONIUM  LEAVES  .  .  «  .  «  •  81 
THE  GERANIUM  FAMILY  ....  *  .  84 

HYACINTH  STORIES 93 

THE  HYACINTH 95 

SIGNS  OF  SPRING 96 

THE  HYACINTH'S  SCEPTRE .98 

TUNICS 99 

THE  BEE .  104 

STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS         .        .       105 

NECTAR  GUIDES 107 

CELLS 108 

POLLEN  CELLS 120 

THE  POLLEN      .  127 

THE  ANTHERS 128 

OVULE  CELLS 129 

CHLOROPHYLL         . 134 

ROOT  CELLS .  144 

SKIN  CELLS 148 

TUBE  CELLS 162 

STRENGTHENING  CELLS 165 

WE  AND  THE  PLANT  PEOPLE  .         .         .         .         .       168 

WHAT  ARE  THE  FLOWERS  MADE  OF    .         .         .         .  176 

WHAT  BECOMES  OF  THE  FLOWERS  ....        181 

NOTHING  BUT  LEAVES  .....        ,         .  191 

SIGNS  OF  OTHER  TIMES  .         .         ...         .       214 

WHY  ARE  THE  FLOWERS  so  LARGE  AND  BRIGHT  .  218 
How  MOTHER  NATURE  MAKES  NEW  FLOWERS  .  223 
TONGUES  AND  TUBES  . 231 


THE   FLOWER. 


THE  morning-glory  and  the  bracted  bind- 
weed might  be  taken  for  sisters,  they  look 
so  much  alike.     There  is  no  doubt  but  that 
they  are  closely  related,  although  the  bind- 
weed grows  wild  and  the  morning-glory 
has  to  be  sown  by  us. 

The  bindweed  lives  in  the  country 
and  twines  over  the  hedges  by  the 
roadside ;  you  can  see  its  pink-and- 
white  flowers  all  summer  long  if  you 
look  in  the  right  places. 

It  is  a  jolly  sort  of  life  the  bindweed 
leads,    always    twining,    twining, 
twining,  with   its  leaves  fao- 
ing   the    sunshine   and   its 
fl  o  w  e  r  s 
dancing 
on    their 
slender 
stems, 


4  FLOWERS   AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

We  often  call  the  bindweed  the  wild  morning- 
glory,  and  we  and  the  bees  are  fond  of  it.  We 
enjoy  looking  at  it,  and  probably  the  bees  do,  too, 
though  they  have  yet  another  reason  for  liking  it. 
Just  watch  one  go  into  a  wild  morning-glory  some 
fine  day.  You  will  think  she  expects  to  find  some- 
thing very  delightful  indeed  from  the  way  she 
hurries  in.  And  so  she  does.  She  buzzes  down 
the  white  line  to  the  very  bottom  of  the  flower, 
crowds  her  head  as  far  in  as  she  can  get  it,  and  then 
thrusts  her  long  brown  tongue  yet  deeper  in  to 
where  the  honey  lies.  For  the  flower  makes  honey 
for  the  bee,  and  keeps  it  hidden  as  deep  as  possible. 
There  are  five  openings  in  the  bottom  of  the  flower 
cup  that  go  straight  into  the  honey  wells.  You  need 
only  look  into  a  morning-glory  and  you  will  see  them. 
All  kinds  of  morning-glories,  as  well  as  the  bind- 
weeds, have  them. 

The  bees  know  this,  and  wherever  you  see  the 
morning-glories  you  will  see  their  little  winged 
friends. 

Very  many  flowers  provide  honey  for  the  insects, 
and  it  is  fortunate  for  us  that  they  do ;  for  if  they 
did  not,  we  should  see  no  butterflies  and  have  no 
honey,  for  butterflies  and  bees  cannot  live  without 
the  honey  the  flowers  give  them. 


MORNING-GLORY   STORIES.  5 

Flower  honey  has  a  special  name ;  we  often  call  it 
nectar,  for  a  good  reason  which  I  mean  to  tell  you 
another  time. 

The  places  where  the  nectar  is  stored  are  the  nec- 
tar holders,  or  nectaries. 

It  must  be  a  fine  thing  to  go  to  a  flower  and  take 
a  drink  of  honey  whenever  you  wish ;  but  what  will 
you  say  when  I  tell  you  the  bees  get  bread  as  well  as 
honey  from  the  flowers  ? 

Yet  this  is  what  happens.  You  could  not  live 
upon  honey  alone ;  neither  could  a  bee.  Perhaps  you 
could  not  live  upon  bread  and  honey;  but  you  could 
if  you  were  a  bee,  that  is,  beebread  and  honey. 

For  beebread  is  much  more  nutritious  than  the 
bread  we  eat.  In  fact,  it  takes  the  place  of  meat 
and  eggs  and  milk  and  all  the  other  things  we  take 
such  pains  to  get. 

You  do  not  see  where  a  bee  finds  bread  in  a 
flower  ? 

That  is  because  you  are  not  a  bee.  If  you  were, 
you  would  know  at  once. 

Suppose  you  watch  a  bee  go  into  a  morning- 
glory. 

She  will  be  in  a  great  hurry,  and  you  will  have  to 
keep  your  eyes  open,  or  all  will  be  over  before  you 
know  what  has  happened. 


6  FLOWERS  AND   THEIR  FRIENDS. 

She  will  suck  up  the  honey,  and  then  very  likely 
she  will  turn  around  and  around  on  the  white  pole- 
like  part  that  stands  up  in  the  middle  of  the  flower. 
She  is  not  doing  this  for  fun,  nor  because  she  is  con- 
fused and  does  not  know  which  way  to  go  next. 

She  is  gathering  fine  flour  of  which  to  make  bee- 
bread. 

Put  your  finger  into  the  morning-glory  and  you, 
too,  may  gather  this  fine  flour. 

When  you  take  your  finger  out  there  will  be  some- 
thing like  fine  white  powder  clinging  to  it.  Well, 
that  is  the  flour  from  which  the  bee  makes  her  bee- 
bread.  We  call  it  pollen,  and  if  we  look  closely  we 
shall  find  it  is  stored  in  five  tiny  boxes. 

These  boxes,  which  are  called  anthers,  open  by  a 
slit  along  one  side,  and  the  bee  puts  her  funny  little 
feet  into  the  slits  and  scrapes  out  the  pollen,  which 
she  moistens  with  honey  and  packs  into  baskets  on 
her  hindermost  legs,  or  fastens  to  the  hairs  on  the 
under  side  of  her  body. 

Then  she  goes  home  and  packs  her  load  away  in 
the  hive  for  future  use. 

You  see  it  is  not  much  trouble  to  make  beebread 
—  that  is,  if  you  know  how.  It  does  not  have  to  be 
raised  or  baked,  yet  I  doubt  if  you  or  I  would  be  able 
to  make  it  so  that  a  bee  would  consider  it  fit  to  eat. 


MORNING-GLORY   STORIES. 


These  anthers  are  held  up  on  long  white  stalks 
which  grow  to  the  inside  of   the  flower  cup,  and 
r-\  which    are    named 

K   ^^ 

,".-,  A 


rs 


filaments. 

Since  there  are 
five  anthers  there 
are  five  filaments. 
We  call  the  whole 
thing,  anther  and 
filament,  a  stamen. 
But  this  is  not 
all  there  is  to  be  found  in  a  morning-glory  flower. 
There  is  something  else,  and  if  it  were  not  for  this 
something  else  we  should  not  have  the  fun  of  learn- 
ing about  honey  and  stamens,  because  there  would 
be  none !  Both  honey  and  stamens  exist  because  of 
this  something  else. 

It  is  in  the  very  center  of  the  flower,  and  the 
stamens  stand  about  it  in  a  circle.  It  stands  up  like 
a  pole  and  has  a  knob  at  the  top.  The  knob  sticks 
out  above  the  stamens  as  a  rule.  When  the  flower 
cup  falls,  the  stamens  fall  too,  because  the  filaments 
grow  fast  to  it.  But  this  something  else  does  not 
fall.  It  stays  on  the  vine,  and  you  can  see  it  better 
after  the  flower  cup  has  fallen. 

We  call  it  the  pistil.     It  has  neither  honey  nor 


8  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

pollen,  yet  on  its  account  the  bees  and  butterflies 
visit  the  flowers. 

Here  is  its  picture,  and  you  may  look  at  it  as 
carefully  as  you  please.  The  knob  at  the  top  is 
called  the  stigma,  the  long,  slender  part  is  called  the 
style,  and  the  round  bottom  the  ovary. 

If  you  look  over  all  the  vine  you  will  make  a  dis- 
covery. You  will  find  a  great  many  of  these  pistils 
in  different  stages  of  growth.  When  the  flower  cup 
first  falls  off,  the  pistil  is  very  small  and  has  its 
style  and  stigma.  Then  the  style  and  stigma  fall, 
and  only  the  ovary  remains.  This  grows  larger  and 
THE  PISTIL,  plumper,  and  you  tell  me  it  is  the  seed-pod  and  is  full 
of  seeds.  You  are  right  about  that ;  it  is  the  seed- 
pod,  and  the  pistil  is  the  part  where  the  seeds  grow. 

So  now  you  see  how  very  important  it  is,  and  I 
would  advise  you  to  take  another  look  at  it. 

If  there  were  no  seeds  there  could  be  no  more 
plants,  so  the  growth  of  the  seed  is  a  matter  of  great 
importance. 

When  the  seed  first  begins  to  form  it  is  tiny  and 
soft  and  delicate.  It  is  attached  to  the  inside  of  the 
ovary,  and  we  do  not  then  call  it  a  seed,  but  an 
ovule.  The  word  "  ovule  "  means  "  little  egg,"  and 
the  ovules  are  really  the  eggs  of  the  plant,  as  you 
will  agree  if  you  think  a  moment. 


MORNING-GLORY  STORIES.  9 

If  all  goes  well,  the  tiny,  soft  ovule  becomes  a 
large,  hard  seed.  But  it  cannot  do  this  alone;  it 
needs  help.  Probably  you  never  could  guess  what 
helps  it,  so  I  will  tell  you  at  once :  it  is  the  pollen. 

If  a  pollen  grain  can  unite  with  an  ovule,  the  two 
thus  joined  together  can  grow  into  a  seed.  So  you 
see  the  flower  does  not  provide  pollen  for  the  use  of 
the  bee  alone.  It  makes  it  for  its  own  seed-children. 

But  the  bee  is  the  messenger  that  carries  the  pollen 
to  the  ovule.  You  see  the  pollen  grain  of  our 
morning-glory  lies  in  the  anther  below  the  stigma, 
and  it  must  reach  the  stigma  so  as  to  find  its  way 
down  to  the  ovary.  Just  how  all  this  comes  about 
you  will  know  later  ;  only  now  remember  that  the 
pollen  must  get  to  the  stigma,  and  that  the  bee  puts 
it  there.  Not  on  purpose,  though.  The  bee  collects 
pollen  for  her  own  use,  but  in  doing  so  touches  the 
stigma  with  her  pollen-covered  body,  and  some  of 
the  pollen  grains  stick  to  the  stigma  instead  of 
remaining  on  the  bee. 

When  the  pistil  is  ripe,  the  stigma  is  sticky  and 
holds  fast  the  pollen  grains  that  touch  it.  The  union 
of  ovule  and  pollen  is  called  fertilization,  and  by  fly- 
ing about  from  flower  to  flower  the  insects  carry 
pollen  from  one  flower  to  another,  and  thus  fertilize 
the  plants. 


10 


FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 


You  will  know  a  great  deal  more  about  this  later. 
So  we  see  the  pollen  is  made  for  the  sake  of  the 
seeds.  The  honey  is  also  made  for  the  sake  of 
the  seeds,  for  it  attracts  the  insects  that  are  neces- 
sary to  fertilize  the  flower.  Even  the  flower  cup  has 
its  bright  and  beautiful  coloring  to  attract  the  atten- 
tion of  the  insects  and  call  them  to  it.  The  name  of 
the  flower  cup  is  the  "  corolla,"  and  means  "  a  little 
crown  "  or  "  garland." 

The  corolla  is  not  the  only  covering  the  inner 
parts  have.  Look  at  the  end  of  the  flower  next  the 
stem  and  you  will  see  the  green  calyx.  When 
the  corolla  falls  off,  the  calyx  stays  and  protects  the 
tender  ovary.  The  calyx  has  five  parts,  or  sepals, 
and  these  fold  about  the  ovary  like  a  green  cup  and 
keep  it  safe. 

When  the  ovules  are  ready  for  the  pollen,  the 
flower  puts  on  its  beautiful  garland 
as  a  sign  that  the  life  of  the  plant 
ig  to  be  renewed. 

When  we  look  at  the  flowers  in 
the  fields  and  gardens  we  may  know  that 
their  loveliness  is  also  a  promise  for  the 
future. 

Calyx. 


THIS   IS   THE   FLOWER   SO   BRIGHT  AND   GAY. 


MOST  flowers  have,  like  the  morning-glory,  corolla, 
stamens,  and  nectar  to  assist  the  pistil  in  developing 
the  seeds. 

The  sweet  pea  has,  and  somebody  once  told  a  story 
about  it  that  I  am  going  to  tell  you,  because  I  think 
it  will  help  you  to  remember  the  parts  of 
the  flower  and  their  uses. 

This  is  the  flower  so  bright  and  gay. 
This  is  the  stamen  that  lives  in  the  flower 
so  bright  and  gay. 

^  This  is  the  anther  that  grows  on  the 
stamen  that  lives  in  the  flower  so  bright 
and  gay. 

This  is  the  pollen  that  lies  in  the  anther  that 
grows  on  the  stamen,  that  lives  in  the  flower  so 
bright  and  gay. 

This  is  the  bee  that  gathers  the  pollen  that 
lies  in  the  anther  that  grows  on  the  stamen  that 
lives  in  the  flower  so  bright  and  gay. 


12  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

This  is  the  stigma  that  brushes  the  bee  that  gathers 
the  pollen  that  lies  in  the  anther  that  grows  on  the 
stamen  that  lives  in  the  flower  so  bright  and  gay. 

This  is  the  style  that  leads  from  the  stigma  that 
brushes  the  bee  that  gathers  the  pollen  that  lies  in 
the  anther  that  grows  on  the  stamen  that  lives  in  the 
flower  so  bright  and  gay. 

;This  is  the  ovary  that  stands  under  the  style  that 
ads  from  the  stigma  that  brushes  the  bee  that  gathers 
te  pollen  that  lies  in  the  anther  that  grows  on  the 
ouamen  that  lives  in  the  flower  so  bright  and  gay. 

This  is  the  ovule  that  hides  in  the  ovary  that 
stands  under  the  style  that  leads  from  the  stigma 
that  brushes  the  bee  that  gathers  the  pollen  that  lies 
in  the  anther  that  grows  on  the  stamen  that  lives  in 
the  flower  so  bright  and  gay. 

This  is  the  seed  that  grows  from  the  ovule 

BECAUSE 

the  ovule  hid  in  the  ovary,  the  ovary  stood  under 
the  style,  the  style  led  from  the  stigma,  the  stigma 
brushed  the  bee,  the  bee  gathered  the  pollen,  the 
pollen  lay  in  the  anther,  the  anther  grew  on  the 
stamen,  and  the  stamen  lived  in  the  flower  so  bright 
and  gay ! 


THE   CALYX. 


THE  calyx  is  green. 

The  calyx  is  strong. 

The  calyx  protects  the  ovary. 

It  has  five  sepals  —  five  green  sepals. 

They  overlap  like  the  tiles  on  a  roof  and  thus  pro- 
tect the  ovary  from  rain.  They  also  protect  it  from 
insects  that  otherwise  might  destroy  it. 

The  calyx  covers  the  base  of  the  corolla  and  forms 
a  green  urn,  a  little  vase,  in  which  to  hold  it  secure 
from  harm. 

It  is  not  bright  and  delicate  like  the  corolla,  but 
what  would  the  flower  do  without  it  ? 


13 


BLOSSOM   DEAR. 


BLOSSOM  dear,  what  is  the  power 
Draws  the  shining  wings  to  thee  ? 

Nestled  in  thy  dainty  bower 
I  can  always  find  a  bee. 

Little  friend,  my  bees  find  honey 
Hidden  deep  as  deep  can  be. 

Without  fear  and  without  money 
Come  they  for  these  sweets  to  me. 


Flower,  flower,  give  me  honey, 
Give  me  honey  from  thy  store. 

I  will  pay  with  love  and  money ; 
Stores  of  money,    and   love   much 
more. 


MORNING-GLORY    STORIES.  15 

Dear,  I  cannot  give  you  honey. 

Shall  I  truly  tell  you  why  ? 
Bees  pay  better  worth  than  money 

As  they  have  wings,  but  you 
can't  fly! 

So  I  coax  them  with  my  honey, 
Feed  them  with  my  very  best, 

While  their  wings  bear  life  to  many 
Waiting  in  the  cradle  nest. 

For  the  children  of  the  flowers 
Need  the  precious  pollen  dust, 

And  the  bees  have  winged  powers 
To  bear  to  them  this  sacred  trust. 


WHAT   HAPPENED   IN   THE   GARDEN. 


THE  morning-glory  lay  rolled  up  in  the  bud  down 
under  the  leaves.     One  day  it  bloomed. 

The  firm  stem  held  it  up,  the  bud  un- 
rolled, and  the  blossom  stood  there,  fresh 
and  fair. 

The  bees  saw  it  from  afar,  and  came  as 
fast  as  they  could. 

The}'  flew  to  the  pink  corolla,  and,  enter- 
ing, enjoyed  the  feast  spread  for  them. 

moming-gl°ry?  because  of  their  com- 


v 

k  \          *r    -  fine(j  the  nectar  cups  and  opened  the 


boxes  of  snow-white  pollen. 

One  after  the  other  the  bees  came,  drank 
the  nectar,  and  carried  away  the  pollen.  As 
fast  as  the  cups  were  emptied  they  were  filled 
again. 

The  honeybees  and  the  bumblebees  were 
provided  with  baskets,  which  they  filled  with 
pollen ;  but  the  other  bees  carried  it  away  on 
the  long  hairs  of  their  bodies. 


16 


MORNING-GLORY    STORIES.  17 

The  morning-glory  glowed  in  the  sunshine  all  day 
long,  happy,  no  doubt,  in  the  consciousness  that  the 
little  seed-children  had  begun  to  grow.  It  was 
because  of  them  the  bees  were  made  so  welcome. 

We  can  imagine  the  flower  might  feel  like 
saying,  "  This  is  my  seed-children's  birthday 
party;  come  often,  dear  bees,  and  sip  my 
nectar  and  take  my  pollen.  But  be  like  the 
good  fairies  and  bring  each  a  gift  to  my  seed- 
children." 

The  bees  buzzed  and  came  and  went  and  came 
and  went. 

Each  time  they  took  away  nectar  and 
pollen  to  their  hives,  and  each  time  left 
something  for  the  seed-children. 

Do  you  suppose  they  left  a  cap  of  darkness, 
and  a  pair  of  seven-league  boots,  and  a  sword 
that  always  conquered,  and  a  magic  carpet  that 
took  people  wherever  they  wanted  to  go,  as 
the  fairies  used  to  do  in  the  times  when  fairies 
were  alive  and  came  to  the  christenings  of  little 
children  ? 

I  do  not  think  the  bees  brought  any  of  these  things 
to  the  birthday  party  of  the  seed-children. 

The  bees,  not  being  real  fairies,  were  obliged  to 
bring  what  they  could. 


18 


FLOWERS  AND   THEIR   FRIENDS. 


Now,  the  day  that  the  pink  morning-glory 
bloomed,  a  great  many  other  morning-glories 
came  out  of  their  buds,  and  they  all  gave  the 
bees  a  welcome. 

They  filled  their  cups  with  nectar  and  opened 
their  boxes  of  snow-white  pollen. 

Such  a  feast    as  was    spread  for    the    bees ! 
Blue  morning-glories,  and  pink  and  purple 
and  white  ones,  on  all  sides  they  stood,  fresh 
and  smiling,  and  invited  the  bees  to  come. 
And  the  bees  came.    They  went  from  one 
to  the  other  as  fast  as  they  could.    They 
sucked  up  nectar  from  all,  and  took  it 

s. 

home  and  made  morning-glory  honey  of 
it.  And  they  gathered  snow-white  pollen 
from  all,  and  took  it   home  and  made 
morning-glory  beebread  of  it. 

But  they  did  not  carry  home  all  the 


MORNING-GLORY    STORIES. 


19 


snow-white  pollen.     They  bore  some  of  it  as  gifts 
to  the  seed-children. 

The  seed-children  needed  the  pollen;  they  could 
not  grow  into  seeds  without  it,  and  they  needed  the 
pollen  from  another  flower,  not  that  from  their  own. 
So  the  pollen  the  bees  brought  them 
was  better  far  than  caps  or  boots  or 
carpets  or  any  of  those  things  the 
fairies  used  to  bring  to  human 
children. 

And  this  is  why  the  morning- 
glories  made  the  bees  so  welcome.  They  could 
not  take  their  pollen  to  each  other,  for  they 
could  not  leave  their  steins;  so  they  employed  the 
bees  to  carry  it  for  them. 

The    morning-     ^V    glories   nodded   to   each 
other  across  the    J^^v  garden.     "I   will    send 
my  bee  to  you,"  ^ °ne  said  to  another, 
and  the  bee  came  ^^^^^U,  and   left   a   few 
grains  of  pollen  from  the  ^^^xfriendl    flower. 
In  this  way  the  morning-glories 
exchanged    pollen    all    day  /^%Lr^^'        l°ng>    so 
that    each    had    plenty    of  fresh  neigh- 

bors'   pollen   to    give    the    jjr        seed-children. 

The  flowers  lasted  all     J/      day,  from  sunrise  to 
sunset,  and  the  nectar  <*r    lasted   all   day,   and    the 


20  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

snow-white  pollen.  But  when  night  came  the  bees 
went  home  to  sleep,  and  the  morning-glories,  too, 
slept.  They  rolled  in  the  edges  of  their  corollas  so 
that  the  way  to  the  nectar  cups  was  closed. 

Next  day  the  morning-glories  did  not  open  again. 
There  was  no  more  nectar  in  their  cups  and  no  more 
snow-white  pollen  in  their  anther  cells.  Other  morn- 
ing-glories came  out  of  their  buds  and  invited  the 
bees,  but  these  staid  shut.  Soon  the  corollas,  faded 
now  and  no  longer  lovely  to  look  at,  fell  off.  Their 
work  was  done.  They  had  been  beautiful  to  show 
how  happy  they  were  and  how  lovely  life  was ;  by 
their  beauty,  too,  they  had  brought  the  bees  and 
gained  the  pollen  they  wanted  to  make  other  lovely 
flowers  live.  Now,  their  messages  of  love  and 
happiness  given,  they  fell  off,  and  the  pollen  boxes, 
empty  and  withered,  fell  with  them. 

But  they  left  behind  life  and  hope,  for  each  tiny 
seed  had  received  its  grain  of  life-assuring  pollen. 
For  only  the  corolla  and  the  stamens  fell.  The  seed- 
children  still  clung  to  the  stem;  they  lay  in  their 
cradles,  nicely  wrapped  up  by  the  green  calyx  leaves. 
And  then  the  little  stems  that  held  the  seed-babies' 
cradles  turned  down  and  hid  the  little  cradles  under 
the  leaves. 

The  seed-babies  grew  and  grew.     They  would  soon 


MORNING-GLORY    STORIES. 


21 


have  outgrown  their  cradles,  only  the  strange  thing 
is,  the  cradles  grew  too  !  They  grew  as  fast  as  the 
seeds  and  kept  them  snug  and  safe. 
So  all  summer  long,  until  the 
frost  came  and  it  was  time  for  *the 
morning-glories  to  take  their  long 
winter  sleep,  the  buds  opened  in 
the  morning.  All  summer  long 
the  bright  morning-glories  filled 
their  cups  with  nectar  and  opened 
their  boxes  of  snow-white  pollen  for 
the  bees.  And  all  summer  long  the 
seed-children  received  their  pollen 
and  grew  and  grew  in  their  cradles 
that  grew  too.  But  after  a  while  the 
green  cradles  turned  brown.  And 
after  another  while  the  brown  cradles 
opened  to  let  the  seed-children  look 
out,  and  as  soon  as  this  happened  every 
little  black  seed — for  they  had  grown  quite 
black  by  this  time  —  fell  out  of  its  cradle  ! 
It  did  not  hurt  it  to  fall  out,  for  it  tumbled 
and  rolled  down  to  the  earth,  where,  at  last,  the  wind 
came  and  covered  it  with  leaves,  as  the  robins  covered 
up  the  babes  in  the  woods.  And  the  little  black 
seed-babies  lay  there  as  snug  as  seed-babies  could  be. 


22 


FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 


Then  the  snow  came  and  spread  a  blanket  over 
them,  and  the  leaves  and  the  snow  kept  them  as 
warm  as  they  wanted  to  be  until  springtime  came 
and  the  snow  went  away;  and  the  seeds  began  to 
stretch  themselves  and  think  it  was  time  to  wake  up 
and  go  out  and  see  what  was  going  on  in  the  big 
world  above. 


THE   OVULES, 


WHEN    the    ovules    get    ready   to 
grow,  the  flower  prepares  to  bloom. 
All  about  the  ovules  the  delicate 
walls  of  the  ovary  shut  tightly. 

The  white  filaments  of  the  stamens 
group  themselves  about  it ;  you  can- 
not see  the  ovary,  they  stand  so  close 
to  it. 

Their  anther  cells  reach  halfway 
up  to  the  stigma,  for  the  white 
stigma  stands  above  the  anthers. 
The  anthers  and  the  stigina  are  there  for  the  sake 
of  the  ovules. 

But  this  is  not  all. 

A  delicate  corolla  of  bright  colors  surrounds 
the  stamens  and  pistil.  It  holds  them  in  its 
white  tube,  and  spreads  the  bright  border  out 
wide  for  the  bees  to  see  and  come  to  the  help 
of  the  ovules. 

But  this  is  not  all. 


24  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

The  green  calyx  wraps  its  sepals  about  the  end  of 
the  corolla  tube,  and  when  the  corolla  falls 
the  calyx  covers  nicely  the  ovary  and  helps  it 
protect  the  ovules. 
But  this  is  not  all. 
When   the   bees   have   been  and   have  left  their 
message  of  life,  and  when  the  corolla  has  faded  and 
fallen,  the  stems  of  the  flowers  turn  down  and  hide 
the  ovary  with  its  seedlets  under  the  leaves. 
But  this  is  not  all. 

The  leaves  work  day  and  night  to  make  food  for 
the  plant,  and  some  of  it  goes  to  the  ovules.     The 
leaves  eat  what  is  in  the  air  and  change  it  to 
food  for  the  rest  of  the  plant  and  the  ovules. 
But  this  is  not  all. 

The   roots   suck   food   from   the    hard 
earth ;  they  help  the  leaves  make  food. 
But  this  is  not  all. 

The    stems    carry    the   food   from  the 
roots  to  the  leaves,  and  from  the  leaves 
to  the  flowers,  where  it  gets  to  the  ovules. 
Why  should  so  much  be  done  for  the 
sake  of  the  tiny  ovules,  white 
little  atoms  at  the  heart  of 
the  flower? 


MORNING-GLORY   STORIES.  25 

Why  should  the  flowers  care  ?  Why  should  they 
spread  bright  corollas  and  arrange  these  cunning 
protections  and  draw  up  the  sap  for  the  sake  of  the 
tiny  white  ovules  ? 

Look  into  the  ovary  and  see  them. 

Six  small  white  things  are  they,  so  small  and 
soft  you  would  scarcely  think  they  were  worth 
much  care. 

But  look  again  and  think  a  little.  They  are  very 
wonderful,  although  so  small.  They  grow  to  the 
ovary  by  a  little  stem;  they  get  the  good  sap  to 
grow  on  through  this  stem.  They  have  a  little  hole 
through  their  delicate  coats,  and  through  this  hole 
the  pollen  enters. 

When  the  pollen  is  in,  the  little  hole  closes,  and  the 
ovules  feel  strong  and  alive.  They  draw  in  the  sap 
the  leaves  have  made  them  through  their  little  stem ; 
they  grow  larger  and  firmer.  They  cease  to  be  tiny 
white  round  things;  they  get  two  leaves  with  a 
little  stem  and  a  bud  between  them. 

They  are  no  longer  ovules,  they  are  seeds.  They 
are  little  sleeping  vines.  In  each  black  little  seed  is 
a  whole  vine  packed  away. 

After  a  time  the  old  vine  will  fade  away.  It  will 
fall  and  turn  brown.  It  will  do  no  more  work  of 
changing  gases  and  minerals  into  living  plant.  It 


26  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

will  not  again  have  green  leaves  and  bear  bright 
flowers. 

But  there  will  be  more  morning-glories,  for  the 
vine  has  stored  some  of  its  life  in  the  seeds,  and 
they  will  not  fade  and  cease  to  work.  All  that  is 
left  of  the  life  of  the  vine  is  in  the  seeds.  All  the 
morning-glories  that  will  grow  and  delight  us  with 
their  bright  flowers  next  summer  lie  packed  away  in 
the  dark  seeds. 

Dear  little  seeds,  live  on  through  the  cold  winter ; 
without  you  we  never  again  could  see  our  bright 
morning-glories ! 

And  that  is  why  the  vines  take  such  care  of  the 
seeds ;  the  whole  race  of  morning-glories  is  in  their 
keeping. 


THE  LEAVES. 


THE  leaves  of  the  morning-glory  consider  each 
other.  They  stand  close  together,  but,  as  you  see, 
they  do  not  crowd. 

They  turn  a  little  to  one  side  that  all  may 
have  as  much  room  as  possible,  for  each  needs 
all  the  light  and  air  it  can  get. 

The  leaves  also  have  regard  for  the  roots 
working  away  in  the  dark  earth.  Instead  of 
being  flat,  they  have  a  channel  down  the 
middle,  a  gutter  to  convey  the  rain  water  from 
leaf  to  leaf,  and  finally  to  the  ground  above 
the  roots. 

Some  of  the  roots,  it  is  true,  stray  away,  but 
some  stay  close  to  the  plant  and  suck  up  the 
rain  the  leaves  send  them. 

The  young  leaves  fold  together.  They  are 
very  tender,  and  too  much  cold  or  too  much  heat 
would  harm  them ;  and  if  they  were  open,  the  sun 
would  draw  away  too  much  of  their  water. 


28  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR  FRIENDS. 

So  they  lie  close  and  snug,  and  do 
not  open  until  they  have  grown  large 
and  strong  enough  to  meet  the  bright 
sunshine  and  the  cold  night. 

Then  they  open  wide;  they  become 
green  and  do  their  work,  which  is  to 
make  food  for  the  plant. 


TO  THE  MORNING-GLORY. 


WHAT   do   you  do   with   your 

pollen  so  white? 
What  do  you  do  with  your 

honey  so  sweet? 
What  is  the  use  of  your  border 

so  bright  ? 

And  what  is  the  use  of  your 
calyx  so  neat? 


THE   CONVOLVULUS  FAMILY. 


THIS  is  a  large  and,  on  the  whole, 
aristocratic  family. 

About  two  thousand  different  kinds  of 
plants  belong  to  it ;  but  not  so  many  in 
our  climate.  Perhaps  not  more  than  two 
hundred  of  the  Convolvulaeeae,  which  is 
the  proper  name  of  this  family,  come  as 
far  North  as  we  live. 

They  are  rather  cold-blooded  people, 
these  Convolvulacese,  and  prefer  to  stay 
in  or  near  the  tropics. 

Up  our  way  are  the  morning-glories, 
as  you  know.    This  is  not 
their  native  home, 
though, 
as  it  is 
of    the 
bloodroots, 
the  bindweeds,  and 
all  the  other  wild 
flowers, 


30 


MORNING-GLORY    STORIES.  31 

They  were  brought  here  from  the  hot  part  of 
America,  near  the  equator.  Somebody  saw  them, 
no  doubt,  and  of  course  fell  in  love  with  them  and 
sent  some  seeds  to  their  friends  in  the  North,  or  else 
took  them  when  they  went  home. 

Perhaps  a  sailor  boy,  landing  in  South  America 
and  seeing  the  bright  flowers  in  the  morning  sun- 
shine, thought  of  the  New  England  village  where  he 
lived  and  which  he  often  longed  for  there  in  that 
strange  hot  country,  and  perhaps  he  sent  the  seeds 
of  these  bright  flowers  home  in  a  letter.  But  who- 
ever may  have  sent  the  first  seeds,  it  is  certain  the 
morning-glories  received  a  hearty  welcome  in  our 
Northern  world.  And  they  soon  behaved  like  old 
settlers. 

They  grew  cheerily  where  they  were  planted,  and 
their  seeds  fell  to  the  ground,  where  they  managed 
to  survive  the  cold  Northern  winter. 

This  must  have  been  a  great  surprise  to  them  the 
first  time  they  felt  it ! 

Then  up  they  came  in  the  spring  just  as  though 
they  were  at  home.  They  even  strayed  away  from 
the  people's  gardens  and  grew  wild  near  the  villages. 

Perhaps  they  met  their  Northern  cousins  the  bind- 
weeds there.  And  what  a  surprise  that  must  have 
been,  —  to  come  up  from  South  America  and  find  a 


32 


FLOWERS  AND    THEIR  FRIENDS. 


member  of.  one's  own  family  who  had  always  lived 
in  the  cold  North  ! 

See  how  astonished  the  morning-glory  at  the 
bottom  of  the  page  looks  as  it  gazes  upon  its  cousin 
the  bindweed ! 

For  the  bindweeds,  you  must  know,  are  like  the 
bloodroots  and  mandrakes   and  other  wild  flowers; 
they  are  natives  of  our  Northern  climate. 
There  are  several  kinds  of  bindweeds 
just    as    there   are   several    kinds    of 
morning-glories ;  but  they  are  all, 
morning-glories  and  bindweeds 
alike,  descended  from  some 
way-back   convolvulus  an- 
cestor,   just    as    you    and 
your     cousins     and     your 
second    cousins    and    your 
third    cousins    and    your    fourteenth 
cousins   are   all   descended   from    the 
same  great,   great,  great,  way-back  grand- 
father. 

There  is  another  member  of  the  Convolvulus 
Family  with  which  we  are  all  pretty  well  acquainted, 
and  that  is  our  little  red-flowered  cypress  vine.  You 
remember  it,  with  its  feathery  leaves  which  we  train 
over  trellises  in  our  flower  gardens. 


MORNING-GLORY    STORIES.  33 

You  would  hardly  think  at  first  glance  that  it 
was  a  relative  of  the  morning-glory.  But  it  is,  as 
you  would  discover  if  you  looked  at  it  very  carefully 
and  saw  how  much  it  is  like  a  morning-glory  in  its 
way  of  growing,  in  spite  of  appearances. 

It  comes  to  us  from  Mexico,  and  you  could  hardly 
expect  a  Mexican  convolvulus  to  be  just  like  a  South 
American  one,  the  habits  of  the  two  countries  are  so 
different,  you  know. 

Why,  you  would  hardly  know  your  own  relatives 
if  they  had  been  born  and  brought  up  in  South 
America  for  a  few  generations. 

The  next  time  you  go  to  Mexico  be  sure  and  look 
out  for  the  cypress  vine,  which,  for  all  I  know,  may 
be  looked  upon  as  just  a  common  weed  there,  as 
we  look  at  thistles  and  dandelions  here.  We  would 
think  thistles  and  dandelions  beautiful  flowers  if 
we  had  to  raise  them  in  gardens  with  a  great  deal 
of  trouble.  But  because  we  have  to  dig  them  out  of 
our  gardens  and  lawns  we  call  them  weeds  and  detest 
them. 

Way  down  South,  and  also  in  some  parts  of  Florida, 
there  lives  a  lovely  convolvulus.  It  grows  something 
like  our  morning-glories,  only  its  leaves  are  all  sorts 
of  shapes,  heart-shaped  and  halberd-shaped  and 
angled,  all  together  on  the  same  vine  sometimes. 


34  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

Its  blossoms  are  real  flower  queens,  they  are  so 
large  and  white  and  fragrant.  They  have  a  tube 
which  is  three  or  four  inches  long,  and  a  snowy 
border  still  larger.  They  are  called  bona  nox,  which 
you  know  very  well  is  the  Latin  for  "  good  night." 

The  reason  they  are  called  this  is,  they  do  not  open 
in  the  morning  at  all,  but  always  at  night. 

People  have  them  growing  over  their  porches 
sometimes,  and  sometimes  call  them  "moonflowers." 

The  long  white  buds  are  twisted  tightly  shut  in 
the  daytime,  but  as  soon  as  the  sun  sets,  if  you  are 
watching,  you  will  see  something  to  astonish  and 
delight  you.  For  see,  the  bud  moves  a  little  !  .  Then, 
all  at  once,  the  great  white  flower  spreads  out  its 
corolla  with  a  grace  and  serenity  that  thrill  you. 
Before  your  very  eyes  the  bud  unfolds,  and  you  have 
seen  a  flower  blossom  out !  At  the  same  moment  a 
delicate  and  delightful  fragrance  fills  the  air. 

But  why  does  it  bloom  at  night  you  ask. 

The  morning-glory  has  a  bright  bell  to  call  the 
bees,  but  the  bees  do  not  fly  at  night.  Does  this 
large,  fragrant  white  flower  not  care  for  the  bees  ? 
Does  it  not  wish  pollen  from  other  flowers  ? 

That  it  does  ;  above  all  things  it  wants  pollen,  and 
that  is  why  it  has  opened  this  large,  white,  fragrant 
corolla. 


MORNING-GLORY    STORIES.  35 

See  its  tube,  how  long  and  deep.  What  bee  could 
reach  into  that  nectary  ? 

A  humming  bird  might,  but  the  humming  birds 
are  all  tucked  up  on  their  tiny  perches  sound  asleep. 
They  will  never  sip  the  nectar  from  those  large  white 
moonflowers. 

But  what  am  I  saying  ?  Here  comes  one  now ! 
Such  a  whirr  of  wings !  Such  a  dainty  bird  as  poises 
before  the  large 
sweet  flower !  It 
thrusts  in  its  bill, 
but  stay!  that  is  not  a  bird's  bill  F  finding  its  way 
to  the  bottom  of  those  deep-placed  !  nectaries.  It 
is  a  long,  slender  tube  such  as  V  butterflies 
have,  and  this  is  no  bird,  but  v  a  large  night- 
flying  moth. 

These  moths  are  heavier  than  butterflies  and  look 
very  much  like  humming  birds  when  darting  through 
the  air. 

But  if  you  see  one  at  rest  you  know  at  once  it  is 
no  humming  bird.  When  the  humming  birds  are 
darting  about  in  the  sunshine,  these  moths  are  hidden 
beneath  a  leaf  or  in  some  other  safe  place. 

Perhaps  they  fear  some  bird  with  a  taste  for  moths 
will  eat  them  if  they  come  out.  Perhaps  they  love 
the  quiet  night.  However  that  may  be,  as  soon  as 


36  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

it  is  dusk  they  fly  out.  They  are  hungry  after  their 
sleep  through  the  long  summer  day,  'and  dart  about 
to  find  flowers  that  are  still  open. 

The  morning-glories,  we  know,  are  closed,  for  they 
love  the  bees,  but  the  moonflowers  are  filling  the  air 
with  perfume;  their  fragrance  guides  the  moths  to 
the  white  flowers  that  shine  out  in  the  dim  light. 

Now  you  see  why  the  moonflowers  are  white  and 
why  they  are  fragrant.  They  wish  to  call  these 
friendly  nightmoths  to  come  and  carry  pollen  from 
flower  to  flower. 

If  they  were  red  or  purple  the  moths  could  not  so 
easily  see  them,  and  if  they  had  no  odor  the  moths 
could  not  smell  them  a  long  way  off,  and  so  might 
not  come  close  enough  to  find  them. 

So  our  fair  Southern  friend  the  moonflower  loves 
the  moths  and  not  the  bees.  Into  its  long  white  tube 
their  long,  slender  tongues  can  easily  reach  and  find 
the  nectar,  and  in  taking  it  they  brush  the  pollen 
against  their  tongues  or  their  faces,  and  when  they 
go  to  another  flower  it  is  rubbed  against  the  stigma. 

The  sphinx  moths  are  the  fellows  with  long  suck- 
ing tubes  that  fly  in  the  evening. 

A  good  many  members  of  the  Convolvulus  Family 
make  us  happy  by  their  beauty,  but  some  of  them 
do  more  than  this.  The  sweet  potato,  for  instance, 


MORNING-GLORY    STORIES. 


37 


gives  us  something  to  eat.  You  know  what  it  gives 
us,  but  probably  you  did  not  know  the  sweet  potato 
is  a  convolvulus  and  first  cousin  to  the  morning-glory 
and  moonflower,  and  that  it  has  come  to  us  all  the 
way  from  India. 

Some  say  its  home  is  in  the  East  Indies  too,  and 
when  you  go  there,  if  you  look  in  the  right  place, 
you  may  see  it  growing  wild.  I  doubt  if  the  wild 
plant  bears  such  big  potatoes  though;  probably 
they  are  the  result  of  long  cultivation.  . 

It  is  also  said  that  its  home  is  in  tropical 
America.     Very  likely  it  belongs  to  all  these 

/places.     Some  plants  have  a  way  of 
living  all  over  the  world  at  once. 

How  they  managed  to  get  separated 
so  far  is  a  problem  we  must  try  to 
solve  some  day. 

The  sweet  potato  generally  lies 
flat  on  the  ground  and  sends 
out  long  stems  in  all 


38  FLOWERS  AND   THEIR  FRIENDS. 

directions.  Its  leaves,  as  you  can  see,  are  more  or 
less  like  morning-glory  and  bindweed  leaves.  Its 
flowers  are  also  like  morning-glories,  though  they 
are  not  so  pretty.  It  has  a  habit  of  storing  up 
quantities  of  starch  and  sugar  in  its  roots.  It  does 
this,  hoping  to  use  the  starch  and  sugar  again  as 
food  in  forming  new  shoots.  But  sometimes  we 
step  in  and  disarrange  all  these  fine  plans,  for  we, 
too,  need  starch  and  sugar  as  food,  and  we  take  the 
big  sweet  roots  and  eat  them. 

People  plant  large  fields  of  sweet  potatoes,  par- 
ticularly in  the  South.  So  next  time  you  eat  a 
sweet  potato,  remember  it  is  one  kind  of  morning- 
glory  which  has  given  it  to  you. 

The  sweet  potatoes  are  no  relation  whatever  to 
our  common  potatoes;  they  do  not  belong  to  the 
same  family. 

The  sweet  potato  is  not  the  only  useful  morning- 
glory.  There  is  the  jalap,  though  if  you  have  ever 
made  its  acquaintance  you  may  differ  from  me  as  to 
its  value;  for  however  useful  it  may  be  from  the 
doctor's  point  of  view,  it  certainly  possesses  proper- 
ties which  are  quite  the  reverse  of  agreeable. 

It,  too,  forms  large  tubers,  which  it  stores  full  of 
plant  food,  but  it  so  happens  that  this  particular 
plant  food  is  not  fit  for  human  food.  We  put  it  to 


MORNING-GLORY   STORIES. 


39 


quite  another  use.  In  fact,  jalap  is  used  as  a  medi- 
cine. It  grows  very  luxuriantly  at  Jalapa,  or.  as  the 
Mexicans  spell  it,  Xalapa,  in  Mexico,  and  that  is  the 
way  it  gets  its  name  of  jalap. 

In  spite  of  its  very  disagreeable  taste  and  bene- 
ficial effect  upon  sick  people,  the  jalap  is  a  lovely 
vine  with  beautiful  deep  pink  flowers. 

If  you  saw  it  growing  along  the  eastern  slopes  of 
the  Mexican  mountains  you  would  never  suspect  it 
of  being  a  medicine  plant,  and  you  might  not  suspect 
it  of  being  a  convolvulus,  since  its  flowers  are  flat 
instead  of  tubular  in  form. 

Several  members  of  the  Convolvulus 
Family  have  the  same  medicinal  proper- 
ties as  jalap,  and  one  in  particular, 
whose  name  is  scammony,  is  very  highly 
esteemed. 

It  has  an  uncommonly  bad  taste,  and 
its  swollen  roots  are  brought  all  the  way 
from  Syria  and  Asia  Minor,  not  because 
of  their  bad  taste,  but  because  of  their 
power  as  a  medicine.  The  scammony, 
like  the  jalap,  is  a  pretty  plant  in  spite 
of  its  bad-tasting,  medicinal  roots. 

Most  of  the  Convolvulaceae  have  a 
milk}',  bitter  juice,  —  even  our  pretty, 


SCAMMONY. 


40  FLOWERS  AND   THEIR   FRIENDS. 

harmless  morning-glories,  —  and  in  the  jalap  and 
scammony  this  seems  to  be  exaggerated  in  quality 
and  quantity. 

A  few  of  the  Convolvulacese  manage  to  make 
woody  stems  and  become  shrubs  instead  of  vines. 

Two  of  these  live  on  the  Canary  Islands,  and  their 
sap,  instead  of  being  nauseous  and  bad-smelling,  has 
a  delicate  and  delicious  fragrance.  People  take  the 
wood  from  root  aftd  stems  and  press  out  the  oil  to  be 
used  in  making  perfumery. 

Perhaps  you  know  the  odor  of  oil  of  rhodium. 
Whenever  you  smell  it  you  are  inhaling  the  fragrance 
from  a  Canary  convolvulus. 

It  is  a  little  surprising  to  find  our  convolvulus  so 
widespread  and  so  really  useful  in  different  parts  of 
the  world ;  but  there  is  another  side  to  the  history 
of  this  highly  respectable  family.  Every  family, 
probably,  has  its  black  sheep,  and  not  even  the  Con- 
volvulaceoB  can  hope  to  have  all  their  relatives 
honest  and  useful  or  beautiful. 

Still,  one  hates  to  speak  of  the  dodders.  They 
are  in  the  world,  however,  and  they  belong  to  the 
Convolvulus  Family ;  there  is  no  denying  that,  how- 
ever much  one  might  like  to.  None  of  the  Convol- 
vulus Family  ever  speak  of  them  —  at  least  I  have 
never  heard  of  their  doing  so. 


MORNING-GLORY   STORIES.  41 

As  a  rule,  the  members  of  the  Convolvulus  Family 
are  aristocrats.  They  have  descended  from  a  long 
line  of  plants  that  have  gone  on  improving.  That 
is  what  makes  an  aristocrat  in  plant  land,  —  to  be 
descended  from  a  long  line  of  plants  that  have  kept 
on  improving.  Simply  to  belong  to  an  old  family 
does  not  count  for  much  in  the  plant  world,  unless 
that  old  family  has  kept  on  doing  something  to  im- 
prove itself. 

We  know  the  Convolvulacese  are  aristocrats  for 
one  thing  by  their  tubular  corollas;  it  took  good, 
wide-awake  ancestors  to  make  corollas  without  sepa- 
rate petals  anyway,  and  particularly  tubular  ones. 
Then  their  color  tells  their  history.  They  are  often 
blue  or  purple,  which  is  a  very  aristocratic  color 
among  flowers.  Instead  of  being  blue-blooded,  they 
are  blue-colored. 

The  moonflower  is  not  blue,  but  think  what  a 
tube  it  has  and  what  a  large  fine  corolla;  and  then 
think,  too,  that  it  has  learned  to  bloom  at  night  so 
as  to  get  fertilized  by  the  moths,  and  that  is  a  very 
aristocratic  thing  to  do,  I  assure  you. 

If  a  flower  blooms  at  night  it  is  as  great  an  honor 
as  to  wear  a  blue  corolla.  For  you  see  it  has  taken  as 
much  growth  in  the  direction  of  progress  to  acquire 
the  night-blooming  habit  as  to  acquire  a  blue  corolla. 


42  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

The  cypress  vine  has  a  red  corolla,  which  is  a  good 
color,  but  not  quite  as  advanced  as  blue.  You  see, 
in  the  beginning  of  the  world  flowers  were  yellow; 
then  some  became  white,  then  pink.  Probably  red 
was  the  next  step,  then  came  purple,  and  last  of  all 
blue. 

But  the  cypress  vine  has  very  finely  divided  leaves, 
as  you  remember,  and  in  that  it  is  ahead  of  the 
morning-glories.  For  in  the  beginning  of  the  world, 
we  are  told,  leaves  were  not  divided,  and  only  after 
a  long  time  did  some  plants  learn  to  divide  them, 
and  so  increase  their  usefulness  as  leaves. 

But  when  we  come  to  the  dodders,  they  have  no 
leaves  at  all.  The  reason  for  this  is,  they  do  no 
work  for  themselves.  The  green  leaves,  as  you 
know,  prepare  the  food  for  the  plant  and  work  very 
hard  to  do  it.  If  the  dodders  have  no  leaves,  where 
do  they  get  their  food?  That  is  just  the  trouble. 
They  make  other  plants  give  it  to  them.  They  are 
very  much  like  tramps,  going  about  and  living  on 
other  people.  Only  they  are  worse  than  tramps,  for 
they  do  not  say,  "  Please  give  me  something  to  eat. 
I  am  hungry  and  want  some  starch  and  nitrogen 
compounds."  They  do  nothing  of  the  sort.  They 
catch  hold  of  another  plant  and  take  away  its  juices 
without  leave  or  license.  So  you  see  they  are  really 


MORNING-GLORY    STORIES.  43 

thieves  and  robbers,  these  rascally  dodders.  No 
wonder  the  morning-glories  are  not  proud  of  them. 
Not  that  the  dodders  care.  It  is  a  question  whether 
they  even  know  they  are  related  to  the  morning- 
glories. 

They  think  of  little  but  how  to  get  something  to 
eat  out  of  other  people. 

They  begin  their  shameful  career  from  the  very 
seed.  Instead  of  sprouting  hi  the  spring  with  the 
other  seeds,  they  lie  still  until  all  the  other  plants 
have  gone  out  of  their  seeds  and  are  at  work  making 
green  leaves  and  storing  their  stems  with  plant 
juices. 

Then  Dodder  the  Robber  comes  out.  But  instead 
of  sending  down  a  root  and  up  a  stem  like  other 
seeds,  he  just  pushes  out  a  little  thread- 
body,  which  fastens  into  the  ground. 
You  might  think  this  an  honest  little 
root  going  down  into  the  ground  if  you  did  not  know 
friend  Dodder.  But  it  is  no  root ;  it  does  not  suck 
up  juices  from  the  earth :  it  simply  anchors  the  little 
robber  so  he  cannot  be  blown  away.  Now  the  thread- 
like body  grows  larger  and  sticks  up  out  of  the 
ground,  carrying  the  seed-coat  with  it.  The 
seed -coat  is  packed  with  food  which  the  parent  ^ 
plant  stored  away  there.  The  young  dodder 


44 


FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 


nourishes  itself  with  this  food  until  it  is  all 
gone;  then  it  casts  off  the  empty  seed-coat, 
and  behold  young  Dodder  ready  for  the  fray. 
What  he  very  much  wants  at  this  time  is 
a  fresh  young  twig  to  cling  to  and  suck  the 
juice  out  of.  If  nothing  of  the  sort  is  handy 
he  is  in  a  bad  way,  for  he  is  too  Jielpless  to 
do  anything  for  himself.  He  has  no  green 
leaves,  and  does  not  know  how  to  make  any, 
and  without  green  leaves  he  cannot  get  a 
thing  to  eat.  Poor  Dodder !  after  all,  it  is 
not  wholly  his  fault  he  is  such  a  good-for- 
nothing  specimen  of  planthood.  You  see  he 
came  from  bad  stock.  His  parents  wrere  like 
this  before  him,  and  no  one  has  ever  taught 
him  any  better.  Well,  there  he  lies,  as  help- 
less a  plant  as  you  can  imagine.  But  just  let 
a  green  shoot  come  within  reach !  TJien  you 
will  see  !  He  twists  around  it  without  stop- 
ping to  say  "  by  your  leave."  He  pierces  it 
with  little  suckers  that  draw  out  its  juices. 

Now  Dodder  is  all  right.    He  has  plenty 

of  food  without  the  trouble   of  making 

a  bit  of  it  himself. 

And  then  how  he  grows  !    Up  the  poor 

weed  he  twines,  a  slender  yellow  stem 


MORNING-GLORY    STORIES.  45 

that  looks  as  much  like  yellow  yarn  as  anything  else. 
Around  and  around  he  turns ;  he  has  no  leaves  to 
make,  only  useless  little  scales  that  show  where  long 
ago  his  ancestors  once  had  honest  leaves. 

You  will  sometimes  find  the  weeds  in  a  damp  place 
a  perfect  tangle  of  dodder  vines,  so  that  nothing  else 
is  to  be  seen.  They  cover  the  weeds,  sucking  out 
their  juices  and  smothering  them.  And  when  the 
time  comes  the  dodder  breaks  out  into  innumerable 
bunches  of  flowers,  which  grow  at  short  distances 
along  the  yellow  stems.  These  flowers  are  small 
and  generally  white,  and  clustered  so  close  together 
that  they  form  a  sort  of  knot  or  rosette  on  the 
stem. 

You  would  never  imagine  to  look  at  them  that 
they  belonged  to  our  Morning-Glory  Family. 

Their  corollas  are  more  or  less  cleft,  being  grown 
together  only  at  the  base. 

Sometimes  the  flowers  are  orange-colored  or  reddish, 
but  they  do  not  seem  to  attract  the  insects  much. 
Nor  do  they  care,  for  they  can  easily  fertilize  them- 
selves, the  anthers  and  stigmas  being  so  close 
together.  They  have  none  of  the  ingenious  arrange- 
ments for  cross-fertilization  that  characterize  their 
more  fortunate  relatives.  They  are  thoroughly 
degraded  plants. 


46 


FLOWERS  AND    THETR   FRIENDS. 


There  lives  a  dodder  in  Europe  which  grows  upon 
flax,  and  so  does  damage  to  the  flax  fields,  and  I  am 
sorry  to  say  this  little  pest  has  tramped  his  way 
across  the  ocean  into  our  flax  fields.  We  do  not 
thank  Europe  at  all  for  sending  us  such  an  emigrant. 

As  the  dodders  have  nothing  to  do  but  suck  the 
juices  of  other  plants  and  make  seeds  out  of  them, 
you  may  be  sure  they  set  any  quantity  of  seeds  to 
keep  up  the  disreputable  race  of  dodders. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  the  dodders,  dear  Convolvulus 
People,  let  us  say  to  you,  as  our  beloved  old  Rip  Van 
Winkle  says  to  us,  "  May  you  live  long  and  prosper, 
and  all  your  family  !  " 


TROP^EOLUM    STORIES. 


TROP^OLUM    HONEY. 


IF  you  had  a  horn  as  red  as 

a  rose, 
And  full  to  the  brim  with 

honey, 

If   a    bee    came    along   and 

begged  you  for  some, 

Now  tell,  would  you  give 

her  any  ? 


If  I  had  a  horn  as  red 

rose, 
And  full  to  the   brim  with 

honey, 
If  a  bee  came  along  I  'd  invite 

her  in, 

And  give  her  all  she  could 
carry ! 


as  a 


THE    TROP^OLUM. 


LIKE  the  morning-glory  flower,  the  tropaeolum,  or 
nasturtium,  as  we  usually  call  it,  has  several  impor- 
tant organs.  It  has  a  pistil  and  stamens,  and  plenty 
of  rich  nectar. 

Its  corolla,  as  you  know,  is  large  and  showy,  but 
it  is  not  in  the  form  of  a  tube.     It  is  divided, 
into  several  distinct  pieces  called  petals. 
Its  calyx,  too,  is  not  green,  but  is 
colored  somewhat  like  the  corolla. 
And  what  is  that  we  see — that 
long  red  horn  ? 

That  is  the  tropaeolum's  nectary. 
It  is  framed  from  the  calyx, 
in  which   certain  of   the 
sepals  have  grown 
together  to  form 
this  horn  of 
plenty. 


TROPAEOLUM  STORIES.  51 

We  are  tempted  to  call  it  a  horn  of  plenty  because 
it  is  shaped  like  a  cornucopia  and  is  overflowing 
with  sweet  nectar. 

It  is  no  wonder  the  bees  and  humming  birds  visit 
Tropaeolum  so  constantly. 

She  has  provided  a  most  attractive  dish  of  honey 
for  them,  but  she  has  so  cleverly  placed  it  that  they 
cannot  reach  it  without  doing  her  a  service.  In  our 
climate  bees  and  humming  birds  are  her  constant 
visitors,  but  in  her  own  home,  in  South  America,  she 
may  have  visitors  we  do  not  know.  She  may  have 
a  favorite  moth  whose  tongue  just  fits  into  her  long 
red  horn,  or  it  may  be  a  humming  bird  that  comes 
to  her  there,  for  South  America  is  the  home  of  the 
humming  birds,  or  it  may  be  a  butterfly.  We  do  not 
know  about  that,  but  we  do  know  that  her  red  spur 
has  doubtless  grown  to  its  present  form  to  please  some 
beloved  bird  or  insect,  and  that  the  bill  or  tongue  of 
that  bird  or  insect  is  as  long  as  her  red  spur. 

Why  do  you  suppose  Tropaeolum  makes  honey  for 
the  insects  and  the  birds  ? 

Why  does  she  love  to  have  them  come  and  take 
the  nectar  from  her  long  red  horn? 

I  think  I  know  the  reason  why.  She  has  placed 
her  horn  of  nectar  just  back  of  her  stamens.  The 
bees  must  walk  over  the  stamens  before  they  can 


52 


FLOWERS  AND    TH^IR   FRIENDS. 


reach  the  nectar.  The  humming  bird  must  touch 
the  anthers  when  he  thrusts  in  his  bill.  Whatever 
takes  the  honey  must  touch  the  anthers. 

This  is  why  Tropaeolum  has  a  long  red  horn  full  of 
rich  nectar.  She  wishes  the  birds  and  insects  that 
come  to  her  for  honey  to  touch  her  anthers,  which 
are  overflowing  with  red  pollen. 

She  has  made  the  pollen  for  her  friends,  and  not 
for  her  own  use.  She  wishes  her  neighbors,  the 
other  tropaeolums,  to  have  the  beautiful  gift ;  but 
how  can  she  send  it  to  them  ? 

She  makes  herself  beautiful  and 
bright ;  she  fills  her  horn  with 
honey  and  exhales  fragrance. 
The  bees  and   the  humming 

birds  see  her  and  approach.    No 

doubt  they  rejoice  in  the  bright 
colors,  the  perfume,  and  the  nectar. 
They  come  on  bright  wings,  and 
as  they  approach  the  nectary  the 
grains  of  red  pollen  cling  to  them. 

They  cannot  get  enough  nectar 
from  one  flower ;  each  gives  them  a 
little, then  they  fly  to  others  for  more. 
From    flower    to  flower   they  hasten    and 
scatter  pollen  as  they  go.     The  pollen  from 


TROP^OLUM  STORIES.  53 

one  flower  is  often  left  in  another,  and  this  is  what 
the  tropseolum  wants.  It  wishes  its  pollen  to  reach 
another  flower,  and  uses  the  bees  and  the  humming 
birds  as  its  messengers. 

Its  stamens  lie  flat  on  the  floor  of  the  flower. 
When  one  is  about  to  ripen  its  anther  rises  and 
stands  up  in  front  of  the  spur,  where  the  nectar  is 
ready.  Then  out  bursts  the  fine  red  pollen.  Only 
one  anther  ripens  at  a  time.  It  sometimes  takes 
several  days  for  the  tropseolum  to  shed  all  its  pollen. 

As  soon  as  the  pollen  is  gone  the  anther  lies  down 
again  out  of  the  way. 

The  stamens  do  not  crowd  the  doorway  of  the 
spur ;  they  lie  down  out  of  the  way  until  they  ripen, 
then  they  stand  in  front  of  the  spur,  and  when  their 
pollen  is  shed  they  lie  down  again. 

They  do  not  obstruct  the  way  to  the  nectary 
because  they  wish  the  bees  and  birds  to  find  an  easy 
entrance. 

Why  does  one  anther  ripen  at  a  time?  Why  do 
not  all  shed  pollen  together,  as  is  the  habit  of  the 
morning-glory,  and  finish  in  one  day? 

Perhaps  the  tropoeolum  fears  the  rain  may  ruin 
the  chances  of  the  seeds  to  get  pollen.  We  know 
that  water  spoils  the  pollen,  and  though  the  tro- 
paeolum  has  fringes  to  keep  it  from  the  nectary, 


54  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

and  a  roof  to  protect  it,  more  or  less  would  doubt- 
less beat  in  during  a  hard  shower. 

Does  the  tropaeolum  bloom,  then,  in  the  rainy 
season  in  its  own  hot  home — in  the  rainy  season 
when  the  showers  are  terrific? 

We  should  like  to  know  that. 

If  it  did,  that  would  be  a  good  reason  for  ripening 
the  anthers  one  at  a  time.  If  one  were  spoiled, 
another  might  succeed. 

We  may  be  sure  there  is  a  good  reason  for  this 
habit  of  the  tropaeolum,  though  we  may  not  have 
discovered  it. 

When  at  last  the  pollen  is  gone  and  the  anthers 
are  empty  and  shriveled,  the  spur  is  still  full  of 
honey. 

In  front  of  it  has  risen,  not  a  stamen  this  time, 
but  a  dainty  five-rayed  stigma.  It  is  held  in  place 
by  the  style,  and  is  ripe  and  ready  for  pollen.  It 
has  unfolded  its  five  rays  that  it  may  catch  and  hold 
the  pollen  grains. 

But  all  its  pollen  is  gone !  The  bees  and  the 
birds  have  carried  it  away.  The  bees  ate  some  and 
carried  some  home  to  their  hives.  None  remains 
for  the  five-rayed  stigma.  But  here  comes  a  bee,  a 
large,  yellow-banded  bumblebee.  She  has  a  ball  of 
red  pollen  in  each  of  her  two  baskets.  She  gathered 


TROP^OLUM  STORIES.  55 

it  in  another  tropaeolum  blossom,  and  intends  to  take 
it  home  to  feed  the  young  bees ;  but  as  she  enters 
our  pollenless  flower  for  nectar,  lo !  she  brushes 
aside  the  five-rayed  stigma.  A  few  grains  of  pollen 
from  her  legs  cling  to  the  stigma  $  for  it  is  sticky  and 
holds  them. 

The  bee  hurries  away.  She  does  not  know  what 
she  has  done;  she  does  not  know  that  in  brushing 
aside  the  stigma  that  stood  in  her  way  she  has  given 
life  to  the  seeds  and  provided  for  a  new  generation 
of  tropseolum  vines. 

The  flower  gave  pollen  to  its  neighbors,  and  now 
in  its  need  they  have  sent  pollen  to  it. 

Soon  the  bright  corolla  fades  and  falls.  Its  work 
is  done.  It  expressed  its  joy  in  life ;  it  called  the 
bees,  and  by  them  sent  pollen  to  its  neighbors,  and 
took  pollen  from  them  in  return. 

For  many  days  it  kept  its  long  red  horn  full  of 
sweet  nectar,  until  its  stigma  rose  and  took  the 
pollen,  when  the  flower  faded  and  fell.  But  the 
five-rayed  stigma  did  not  fall.  It  remained  attached 
to  the  green  little  fruit  that  lay  hid  in  the  heart  of 
the  flower. 

It  is  not  easy  to  see  this  fruit  when  the  flower  first 
opens,  for  it  is  small  and  hidden  by  the  stamens. 

But  after  the  pollen  has  reached  the  stigma  the 


56 


FLOWERS  AND    THEIR  FRIENDS. 


fruit  grows  rapidly.  The  corolla  falls,  and  the  stem 
that  holds  the  fruit  curls  up.  It  curls  up  until  it 
has  drawn  the  green  fruit  down  under  the  leaves, 
out  of  the  way  of  the  buds  that  wish  to  open.  The 
stigma  and  style  fall  off  at  last,  and  leave  the  fruit 
to  ripen  alone. 


WHO   LIES   CURLED   UP? 

WHO  lies  curled  up  under  the  shields  ? 

Under  the  shields  of  its  parents  ? 
A  cunning  young  fruit  peeps  out  o'er  the 
world, 

From  under  the  shields  of  its  parents. 

It  is  parted  in  three  with  a  seed  in  each  part, 
This  cunning  young  fruit  I ' ve  told  you  about. 

It  is  parted  in  three,  yet  the  three  are  one  fruit, 
Lying  under  the  shields  of  the  parents. 

The  stems  curl  up  and  pull  it  down 

Under  the  shields  of  its  parents. 
It  lies  there  all  safe,  so  near  the 

warm  ground, 

Under  the 
shields  of  its 
parents ! 


MORE   ABOUT    THE   TROP^OLUM. 


THE  tropoeolum,  which  people  call  nasturtium,  has 
shields  to  defend  itself. 

Warriors   are   content  with   one    shield,  but   the 
tropaeolum  has  many. 

They  have  only  to  protect  themselves 
from  the  darts  of  the  enemy,  but  the 
tropseolum  has  a  harder  task :  it 
has  to   protect   itself   against  the 
pangs  of  hunger. 

It  needs  many  shields  to  do  this, 
for  hunger  is  a  tireless  foe,  and  has 
his  quiver  always  full  of  arrows. 

You  see,  in  the  tropaeolum  the  shields 
are  the  leaves,  and  they  are  held   out 
on  long  stems  to  catch  the  darts 
Apollo,    the    sun,  flings   at   them. 
These  are 
not     un- 
friendly 
darts,   but 
as     they 


58 


TROP^OLUM  STORIES.  59 

strike  the  little  shields  of  the  tropaeolum  they  make 
them  tingle  with  life.  Then  the  shield  leaves  go  to 
work  and  make  food  for  the  plant.  They  make 
starch  and  many  other  things.  They  make  a  spicy 
juice,  for  one  thing,  that  causes  our  tongues  to  smart 
if  we  taste  it.  Sometimes  we  bite  a  tropaeolum  stem, 
for  we  like  the  taste  of  the  sharp  juice.  But  we  do 
not  want  too  much  of  it,  for  it  makes  the  palate  at 
the  back  of  the  nose  tingle,  and  that  is  why  we  call 
it  " nasturtium."  "Nasturtium,"  you  know,  comes 
from  two  Latin  words,  nasus  tortus,  which  mean 
"convulsed  nose";  and  nobody  likes  to  have  a  "con- 
vulsed nose"  very  long  at  a  time! 

"  Nasturtium  "  is  not  the  right  name  for  our  plant 
with  its  many  shields. 

There  is  another  plant  which  "  convulses "  our 
noses,  and  which  the  botany  tells  us  is  the  nastur- 
tium, but  which  we  call  water  cress.  We  eat  it  in 
the  spring  of  the  year. 

The  right  name  of  our  garden  nasturtium  is  "  tro- 
poeolum,"  which  comes  from  a  Greek  word  meaning 
"  trophy,"  its  many  shields  probably  being  likened 
to  so  many  trophies  taken  from  the  enemy. 

Another  name  for  it  is  u  Indian  cress,"  and, 
like  the  water  cress,  it  sometimes  is  eaten,  only  in 
this  case  it  is  the  flowers  instead  of  the  leaves  that 


GO  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

find  themselves  converted  into  a  salad.  The  fruits, 
too,  share  a  similar  fate.  Like  the  rest  of  the  plant, 
they  are  filled  with  spicy  juice.  This  is  a  misfortune 
to  them,  since  it  tempts  people  to  take  these  juicy, 
spicy  fruits  and  pickle  them  to  eat. 

Perhaps  the  plant  learned  to  store  up  this  stinging, 
spicy  juice  to  protect  itself  from  being  eaten  by  ani- 
mals. But  what  can  it  do  to  protect  itself  from  the 
pickle  jar? 

Perhaps,  however,  the  stinging  juice  was  but  a 
result  of  the  plant's  peculiar  method  of  growth. 
Of  course  juice  must  have  some  sort  of  taste,  and 
why  not  a  stinging  taste  as  well  as  any  other  ? 

This  plant  prepares  another  liquid  which  is  not 
sharp  and  stinging,  but  sweet  and  spicy ;  with  this 
delicious  nectar  it  fills  its  long  spur  and  keeps  it  full. 

The  bees  collect  it  and  convert  it  into  tropaeolum 
honey  to  fill  their  waxen  cells. 

This  the  plant  does  not  object  to.  It  makes  the 
nectar  for  the  bees,  and  when,  they  take  it  away  and 
store  it  up  for  winter  use  the  tropseolum  suffers  no 
loss.  But  when  some  one  comes  along  and  picks 
the  fruits  and  stores  them  up  for  winter  use,  that  is 
another  matter ! 

We  are  tempted  to  call  the  spur  of  the  tropseolum 
its  "horn  of  plenty,"  for  that  is  the  name  of  the 


TROPJEOLUM  STORIES.  61 

horn   overflowing  with  good  things   that   never  is 
empty. 

The  Goddess  of  Plenty  owns  this  horn.  You 
can  see  it  in  her  pictures,  as  it  always  stands  at 
her  side,  and  there  overflows  with  flowers  and 
fruits.  All  that  is  good  that  grows  in  the  earth 
is  in  the  horn  of  the  Goddess  of  Plenty.  It  is 
her  cornucopia,  for  "  cornucopia,"  you  know,  means 
"horn  of  plenty." 

The  goddess  got  her  horn  from  the  Naiads.  They, 
you  know,  are  the  nymphs  of  the  brooks  and  foun- 
tains, and  they  gave  it  to  her. 

This  is  the  story  of  how  she  got  it. 

The  river  god,  Acheloiis,  and  Hercules,  the  god 
of  strength,  struggled  together.  Hercules  threw  the 
god  Acheloiis  and  seized  him  by  the  throat.  Then 
Acheloiis,  in  order  to  escape,  changed  himself  into 
a  serpent. 

This  did  not  help  him,  for  Hercules  seized  him  by 
the  neck  and  would  have  choked  him,  but  Acheloiis 
again  changed  his  shape. 

He  became  a  bull,  but  this  was 
not  enough  to  defend  him  from 
the  great  strength  of  Hercules, 
who  seized  him  by  the  neck 
and  dragged  him  to  the  ground, 


62 


FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 


and  in  the  struggle  rent  one  of  his  horns  from  his 
head. 

The  nymphs  of  the  brooks  and  the  fountains,  who 
were  related  to  the  river  god,  Acheloiis,  consecrated 
the  horn  and  gave  it  to  the  Goddess  of  Plenty. 

That  is  one  story,  but  some  say 
the  following  is  the  history  of 
cornucopia. 

You  know  Saturn,  the  oldest 
of  the  gods,  had  a  bad  habit  of 
swallowing  his  children.  When 
Jupiter  was  born,  his  mother, 
Rhea,  did  not  wish  his  father, 
Saturn,  to  swallow  him;  so  she 
gave  him  to  the  care  of  the 
daughters  of  the  king  of  Crete. 
They  fed  him  on  milk  from  the  goat  Amalthea, 
and  watched  over  him  and  protected  him  so  that 
his  father  should  not  find  him.  The  people  of 
Crete  danced  about  him  and  made  such  a  noise 
when  he  cried  that  his  father  could  not  hear 
him. 

He  must  have  cried  very  loud  indeed  to  make  all 
that  necessary ;  but  then,  he  was  destined  to  become 
a  very  great  god,  so  no  doubt  he  did  make  more 
noise  than  ordinary  babies, 


SATURN. 


TROP^OLUM  STORIES.  63 

Out  of  gratitude  to  hi$  kind  nurses,  and  also  as  a 
token  of  esteem  to  the  good  Amalthea,  Jupiter  broke 
off  one  of  her  horns  and  endowed  it  with  a  very 
wonderful  power.  It  became  filled  at  once  with 
whatever  its  possessor  might  wish! 

This  was  a  horn  of  plenty  indeed ! 

Now  you  know  both  stories,  and  you 
may  take  your  choice  as  to  which  one 
you   will    believe.     Whether   our   tro- 
paeolum  had  either  of  these  in  mind, 
it    certainly    made    a   very   dainty 
cornucopia  when  it  constructed  its 
honey-horn  and   filled  it  for  the 
bees,  the  butterflies,  and  the  hum- 
ming birds. 

The  tropseolums  we  have  inL 
our  gardens  are  not  the  only 
kinds ;  there  are,  in  fact,  some  forty  different  tro- 
paeolums  living  in  South  America  and  Mexico,  and 
in  Peru  there  is  one  which  has  large  tuberous 
roots  filled  with  plant  food,  which  is  also  good  food 
for  man,  and  is  eaten  in  some  parts  of  South  America 
instead  of  potatoes ! 

How  would  you  like  to  dig  your  potatoes  out  of 
the  nasturtium  bed? 

It  certainly  would  be  a  pretty  place  to  work  oil 


JCPITKK. 


64 


FLOWERS  AND   THEIR   FRIENDS. 


a  summer  day,  and  how  fine  the  fields  would  look 
all  covered  with  gay  tropseolum 
blooms  instead  of  plain  green  potato 
tops  with  their  dull  blue  flowers ! 


JEWELWEED    STORIES 


A    DAINTY    CAVE. 


TOUCH-ME-NOT  lias  a  dainty  cave 

Spotted  with  red  and  poised  in  the  air. 
Touch-me-not  is  a  pretty  knave 
With  ruby  spots  and  yellow  cave, 

Swinging  there 

So  fresh  and  fair. 


TOUCH-ME-NOT. 


TOUCH-ME-NOT  lives  in  moist  places.  Her  feet 
stand  in  the  damp  earth  and  her  head  looks  up  above 
the  bushes.  Other  plants  love  the  damp,  rich  soil 
along  the  brookside,  and  Touch-me-not  is  sometimes 
crowded  for  room. 

She  is  a  tender  little  plant,  this  Touch-me-not,  and 
she  is  brave  and  wise.     She  knows  that 
must  have 


JEWELWEED    STORIES.  67 

She  finds  it  easy  to  be  beautiful  in  the  pleasant 
world,  where  the  sun  shines  upon  her  and  the 
breezes  fan  her. 

So  forth  from  the  axil  of  every  leaf  she  swings  out 
her  dainty  buds.  They  open  their  petals  at  last,  all 
yellow  and  spotted  with  red.  Cunning  caves  for  the 
bee,  they  swing  on  slender  stems.  The  tangle  of 
weeds  by  the  brookside  is  dotted  all  over  by  the 
bright  blossoms.  Light  as  they  are,  their  slender 
stems  bend  under  their  weight. 

The  bees  see  them  from  a  distance ;  they  are 
attracted  by  the  bright  colors  and  fly  to  visit  the 
touch-me-nots.  They  search  for  honey,  and  of  course 
they  find  it,  for  the  touch-me-not  has  wisely  provided 
nectar  for  bees  and  birds. 

The  pretty  yellow  flowers  contain  ricli  honey  in 
the  little  spur  at  the  back.  The  end  of  the  spur 
turns  down,  and  it  is  in  this  turned-down  tip  the 
honey  is  made.  From  there  it  runs  into  the  upper 
part  of  the  spur,  where  the  bees  can  reach  it. 

The  moist  roadside  in  many  places  is  dotted  with 
yellow  touch-me-not  flowers.  They  hang  like  ear- 
rings from  their  stems,  and  many  call  the  plant 
"jewel weed"  because  of  them.  It  is  a  pretty  sight 
in  the  morning  to  see  the  bright  jewels  sparkling  in 
the  dew, 


68  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR  FRIENDS. 

"  Rubythroat "  flashes  about  among  them.  "  Ruby- 
throat  "  is  our  northern  humming  bird.  His  throat 
is  ruby  red  and  sparkles  in  the  sun.  The  rest  of  his 
body  is  green  and  brown.  He  shines  like  a  jewel  in 
the  sunlight  and  darts  from  flower  to  flower.  You 
cannot  watch  him,  he  flies  so  fast.  But  when  he 
wishes  a  sip  of  honey  he  poises  on  his  tiny  wings 
before  the  jewel  weed. 

Into  the  dainty  swinging  flower  he  darts  his 
slim  black  bill.  He  is  partial  to  the  honey  of  the 
touch-me-not,  and  wherever  it  grows  in  abundance 
you  will  be  sure  to  see  the  rubythroats  darting 
about. 

Rubythroat  does  the  flower  a  favor  in  return  for 
the  honey  he  gets. 

You  know  about  that.  He  carries  pollen  to  it 
from  some  other  flower.  This  new  pollen  enables 
strong  seeds  to  form.  The  jewel  weed  is  very  careful 
to  have  strong  seeds.  It  covers  the  pistil  with  a 
hood  of  its  own  anthers.  Behind  the  anthers  in  a 
dark  little  room  the  pistil  waits  until  all  the  pollen 
is  gone  and  the  anthers  have  fallen  off. 

The  flower  does  not  wish  its  pistil  to  receive  its 
own  pollen.  The  earth  is  crowded,  and  the  seeds 
must  be  strong  to  grow.  So  the  pistil  is  hidden 
behind  the  screen  of  the  anthers  until  there  is  no 


JEWEL  WEED    STORIES.  '  69 

more  pollen  left ;  then  it  comes  forth  and  waits  for 
the  birds  or  the  bees  to  bring  it  fresh  pollen. 

The  anthers  and  pistil  are  not  on  the  floor  of  the 
touch-me-not  flower,  as  they  are  in  the  nasturtium. 
They  hang  from  the  roof  like  tiny  chandeliers. 

The  bees  do  not  walk  over  them,  but  touch  them 
with  their  heads  or  backs,  and  the  humming  bird 
touches  them  with  the  top  of  its  bill  or  with  the 
feathers  on  its  face. 

When  the  birds  or  the  bees  have  brought  the 
pollen,  the  yellow  corolla  falls  off  and  the  fruit 
grows  fast. 

It  is  a  smooth  and  delicate  fruit,  and  it  may  be 
you  know  what  it  does  to  help  the  seeds  find  room. 

When  the  fruit  is  ripe,  the  outer  covering  all  of  a 
sudden  splits  and  curls  up  with  considerable  force, 
acting  like  a  spring  and  shooting  the  seeds  far  over 
the  thicket. 

It  spreads  them  far  and  wide, 
so  they  have  a  better  chance  to 
find  a  place  to  take  root  when 
the  time  comes. 

The  fruits  are  so  eager  to  send  the  seeds  on  their 
journey,  and  so  fearful  that  some  harm  will  come  to 
them,  that  they  snap  them  away  if  any  one  touches 
the  pods.  If  you  jostle  these  eager  plants  you  will 


70 


FLOWERS  AND    THEIR  FRIENDS. 


hear  the  seeds  flying  in  all  directions.  If  you  touch 
a  seed-pod  it  goes  off  in  your  fingers.  No  wonder 
we  call  the  plants  "  touch-me-nots  "  !  Some  call 
them  "snapweed"  or  "snappers,"  and  the  botany 
calls  them  "impatiens,"  because  they  are  so  im- 
patient ! 

They  have  yet  another  name,  "  lady's  eardrop," 
and  I  do  not  know  how  many  more.  People  must 
like  the  pretty  things  to  give  them  so  many  names. 


EARDROPS. 


EARDROPS  of  gold  with  red  rubies  beset, 
Hang  from  the  ears  of  a 

dear  little  maid. 
"Where  did  you  get  them, 
my  darling,  my  pet  ?" 
"Down  by  the   brook 
you  can  pick  them/' 
she  said. 


71 


LADY'S    SLIPPER. 

IN  the  garden  grows  a  relative  of  our  jewel  weed. 
It  is  called  the  "garden  balsam,"  and  sometimes 
"  lady's  slipper." 

Its  own  home  is  far-off  India. 

Its  flowers  are  larger  than  those  of  the  jewel- 
weed  and  are  not  yellow,  but  white  or  red  or  pink, 
and  sometimes  pink  and  white  spotted.  In  shape, 
however,  it  is  very  like  the  jewelweed ;  it  hides  its 
pistil  beneath  the  anthers  in  the  same  way  and  snaps 
its  seeds  afar. 

Its  flowers  grow  double  and  close  to  the  stalk,  and 
it  makes  a  fine  show  in  the  garden  in  the  fall  of  the 
year. 

There  is  one  thing  I  should  like  very  much  to 
know,  and  that  is,  just  when  and  how  this  Indian 
balsam  and  its  cousin  the  North  American  jewel- 
weed  got  separated. 

Way,  way  back,  farther  back  than  the  building  of 
the  pyramids,  these  two  plants  must  have  had  the 
same  ancestors.  Now,  where  did  those  ancestors 
live  ?  In  India  ?  In  America  ?  Somewhere  between  ? 


72 


JEWELWEED    STORIES.  73 

And  what  caused  them  finally  to  get  so  widely 
separated  ? 

Who  is  going  to  tell  us  ? 

For  over  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  the  Indian 
balsam  has  been  cultivated  as  a  garden  plant,  and  no 
doubt  this  long  cultivation  has  done  much  to  bring 
about  changes.  Still,  its  resemblance  to  the  jewel- 
weed  is  quite  unmistakable,  and  we  cannot  doubt 
the  relationship  of  the  two. 


THE   HUMMING   BIRD. 


FLASHING  in  the  sunshine, 

Dashing  through  the  air, 
Sparkling  like  a  jewel, 

See  him  everywhere ! 
Poised  before  a  flower 

For  a  moment's  space, 
Off  again  like  lightning 

On  some  headlong  chase ! 

Blossoms  all  set  swinging 

On  each  slender  stem. 
Touch-me-nots  are  happy 

When  he  visits  them, 
For  he  shakes  the  pollen 

From  his  shining  crest. 
Rubythroat  is  joyous, 

Touch-me-not  is  blest ! 


PELARGONIUM    STORIES. 


THE    PELARGONIUMS. 


A  PELARGONIUM  is  a  "  stork's 
bill."      "Pelargonium"    comes 
from   a   Greek  word   meaning 
"stork,"   and   the  plant  is   so 
named  because  of  the  long,  beak- 
like  seed-pods.    We  call  the 
pelargoniums  "  geraniums," 
and  raise  them  in  our  houses. 
"  Geranium "    means     almost 
the  same  as  "  pelargonium,"  for 
a  geranium  is  a  "  crane's  bill," 
"geranium"   coming   from 
a  Greek  word  meaning 
"  crane,"  and  the 
plant  is  so  called 
because    of    the 
shape    of   the 
seed-pods. 


76  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

I  do  not  think  there  is  much  difference  between  a 
crane's  bill  and  a  stork's  bill,  and  these  two  plants 
with  their  seed-pods  so  very  much  alike  were,  no 
doubt,  named  "stork's  bill"  and  "crane's  bill"  to 
distinguish  them  from  each  other.  But  we  have 
succeeded  in  hopelessly  mixing  them  up,  for  every- 
body insists  upon  calling  the  pelargonium  "gera- 
nium," and  the  geraniums  which  grow  wild  in  our 
woods  and  fields  we  call  "  crane's  bill "  and  "  herb 
Robert." 

The  pelargoniums  are  mostly  Africans.  There  are 
a  great  many  kinds  of  them,  and  all  but  ten  or 
twelve  live  in  South  Africa  among  the  Bushmen, 
the  Boers,  and  the  Englishmen. 

The  rest  have  chosen  to  settle  in  the  northern 
part  of  Africa,  in  the  Orient,  if  you  know  where  that 
is,  and  in  Australia.  Some  people  believe  there  are 
four  hundred  different  pelargoniums,  and  some  say 
there  are  less  than  two  hundred.  You  see,  the 
pelargoniums  change  easily.  Thus  a  great  many 
varieties  are  always  arising,  and  it  is  almost  impos- 
sible at  this  late  day  to  discover  which  was  the  orig- 
inal form  of  the  plant. 

The  pelargoniums  we  know  best  are  the  ones  we 
call  "horseshoe  geraniums,"  "Lady  Washington 
geraniums,"  and  "rose  geraniums." 


PELARGONIUM    STORIES.  77 

We  are  apt  to  think  of  the  whole  Pelargonium 
Family  as  being  ornamental  rather  than  useful,  but 
in  that  wonderful  South  African  country  where  so 
many  of  them  live,  there  is  actually  a  pelargonium 
that  produces  edible  tubers ! 

The  next  time  you  go  to  Cape  Colony  you  must 
be  sure  and  eat  potatoes  gathered  from  a  geranium 
plant ! 

Down  in  Algeria,  where  the  walls  are  so  white 
and  the  sun  shines  so  hot,  the  people  express  an  oil 
from  their  geraniums  and  sell  it.  Other  geraniums 
also  yield  this  fragrant  oil,  but  nowhere  is  it  so 
largely  used  as  in  sunny  Algeria. 

Pelargoniums  love  to  grow.  You  need  only  break 
off  a  twig  and  stick  it  in  the  ground,  and  it  will 
grow  as  merrily  as  though  nothing  had  happened. 

One  day  a  double-flowered  crimson  pelargonium 
blew  away  in  a  gale  of  wind.  It  broke  off  just 
above  the  root  and  away  it  went.  It  was  rescued, 
stuck  back  into  the  pot  of  earth,  abundantly  watered, 
and  continued  to  open  its  flowers  as  though  such  an 
escapade  were  an  everyday  occurrence ! 

Now  about  its  beak.  The  pelargonium  has  a 
beak,  110  doubt,  but  it  does  not  put  it  to  the  same 
use  the  stork  does,  for  its  beak  is  made  up  of  the 
long  styles  of  the  pistil  which  cling  fast  to  a  central 


78 


FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 


column.  The  whole  fruit  looks  a  little  like  a  long 
bird's  beak.  This  beak  opens,  but  not  to  swallow 
little  fishes  as  a  stork's  beak  does. 

It  opens  to  let  out  a  feather!  When  the  seed  gets 
ripe,  the  case  in  which  it  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the 
pistil  breaks  away,  and  the  style  curves  up  and 
breaks  loose  from  the  central  support.  As  soon  as 
the  style  loosens,  out  comes  the  feather.  Not  a  real 
feather,  of  course,  but  a  tuft  of  silvery 
white  hairs  that  grow  along  the  inside 
of  the  style  and  are  packed  close  as  can 
be  until  the  style  lets  them  out ;  then 
they  separate  and  form  a  wide 
fringe  along  the  loosened  style. 
Finally,  the  style  is  only  held 
by  the  very  tip ;  then  this  gives  way,  and 
the  feather  flies  away  with  seed  and  style. 
It  flies  on  the  wings  of  the  wind,  of 
course,  since  it  has  none  of  its  own. 

In  this  way  the  geranium 
seeds  are  sometimes  carried 
long  distances.     But  this  is 
not  the  end  of  the  story.     At  last 
the    seed   with    its    coverings    and 
feather  rests  on  the  ground.     The  seed  end  is  towards 
the  ground,  and  the  very  tip  of  the  pod  is  provided 


PELARGONIUM    STORIES. 


79 


with  a  few  short,  stiff  hairs,  that  point  backwards 
like  the  barbs  on  a  fish  hook  or  a  bee  sting. 

Now  what  do  you  suppose  these  hairs  are  ^ 
for?  Do  you  think  their  being  there  is  a  mere 
accident  ?  Not  at  all.  When  the  weather  is  damp, 
the  style,  with  the  feather  attached,  curls  up.  Then 
it  acts  like  a  gimlet  and  forces  the  pointed  end  of  the 
seed  into  the  ground.  When  it  becomes  dry,  the  style 
straightens  out.  But  the  seed  cannot  be  pulled  out 
of  the  ground  when  this  happens,  because  the  barbs 
on  the  tip  of  the  seed-case  hold  it  fast !  So  it  does 
time  and  again.  When  it  is  damp,  the  seed  is  forced 
deeper  into  the  earth.  When  it  is  dry,  the  style 
straightens  out  so  as  to  be  ready  to  curl  up  again. 

You  see  how  it  is,  do  you  not  ?     The  pelargonium 
is  planting  its  seed. 

Certainly  the  „,  geraniums  are  good 
parents.  All  ^^the  members  of  this 
astonishing j^r  family vW,  do  some- 


thing 
sake  of 


for    the 


AN    AFRICAN, 


THERE  's  a  native  of  Cape  Town 
Always  wears  a  scarlet  crown. 
Not  a  lord  of  high  degree, 
But  a  simple  peasant  he. 

You  will  see  him,  if  you  look. 
Resting  in  some  sunny  nook. 
He 's  no  Boer  nor  Englishman, 
But  a  native  African ! 


He  just  wanders  up  and  down 
O'er    the    wilds   of    hot  Cape 

Town ; 

Takes  no  part  in  strife  or  war, — 
Does  n't  know  what  it  is  for. 

Boers  may  fight  if  they  must 

needs. 

Calm  he  sits  among  the  weeds. 
No  soldier  he  in  battle's  hum, 
But  just  a  red  geranium ! 


PELARGONIUM    LEAVES. 


SOME  of  the  pelargoniums  decorate  their  leaves 
with  horseshoes.  All  are  in  the  habit  of  folding 
their  leaves  fan-like  in  the  bud.  When  they  grow 
large  these  folds  straighten  out.  It  is  a  good  thing 
to  be  folded  up  fan-like  in  the  bud;  the  leaf  then 
takes  up  less  room,  and  is  kept  snug  and  safe  until  it 
grows  strong  enough  to  care  for  itself.  The  pelar- 
gonium indulges  in  large  stipules.  These  are  green, 
leaf-like  bodies  growing  on  the  leaf  stalk  where  it  is 
attached  to  the  stem  of  the  plant.  They  fold  over 
the  young  leaf  and  protect  it;  but  after  the  leaf 


comes  out 
stipules 


of   the    motherly   arms   of    the 
and  stands  up  on  a  long  stem,  the 


gradually 

and  wither 
away. 


82  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

Most  pelargonium  leaves  are  covered  with  a  fine 
coat  of  hairs.  In  the  warm  countries  where  pelar- 
goniums grow  wild  they  need  a  coat  of  down  to 
prevent  the  sun  from  scorching  them. 

As  long  as  there  is  plenty  of  water  in  the  leaves 
the  sun  cannot  harm  them,  no  matter  how  warmly 
it  shines ;  but  if  it  can  draw  out  the  water,  then  the 
leaf  must  fade.  The  coat  of  hairs  for  one  thing 
prevents  the  water  from  evaporating  too  rapidly. 
Thus  the  pelargonium  does  not  wear  its  fuzzy  coat 
to  protect  it  from  the  cold,  but  from  the  sun.  The 
hairs  also  prevent  the  rain  or  dew  from  stopping  up 
the  breathing  pores  of  the  leaf. 

Most  pelargonium  leaves  have  a  habit  of  using 
perfumery  of  one  kind  or  another.  They  make  it 
themselves  out  of  the  food  they  find  in  the  earth  and 
the  air.  The  rose  geraniums  we  think  are  particu- 
larly successful  in  this  respect. 

Why  do  you  suppose  the  pelargoniums  perfume 
their  leaves  ? 

Perhaps  it  is  to  prevent  animals  from  grazing 
them,  for  animals  do  not  like  to  eat  strong-scented 
things,  even  if  to  our  senses  the  odor  is  agreeable. 
If  this  is  the  reason,  we  are  glad  the  pelargoniums 
selected  a  perfume  that  we  can  enjoy. 

We  think  there  may  be  some  such  reason  for  the 


PELARGONIUM    STORIES. 


83 


fragrance  of  the  pelargonium,  because  plants  are 
never  wasteful.  They  make  only  what  will  be  use- 
ful to  them  in  some  way.  They  love  to  be  beautiful, 
but  are  never  satisfied  unless  theirs  is  a  useful 
beauty.  The  fragrance  of  the  leaves,  however,  may 
be  due  to  some  cause  and  useful  for  some  purpose 
that  we  know  not  of. 


THE   GERANIUM   FAMILY. 

THE  Geranium  People  are  rather  unsettled  as  to 
their  relatives  —  or,  rather,  we  are  somewhat  con- 
fused on  the  subject.  Probably  the  geraniums  know 
all  about  it,  but  they  will  not  tell  the  botanists,  so 
the  botanists  have  to  do  the  best  c 
they  can  by  themselves. 

Some  say  the  tropaBolum  belongs  to  the 
Geranium  Family,  and   it   certainly 
does  bear  quite  a  strong  family  re- 
semblance to  the  geraniums. 
They  also  say  the  Impa- 
tiens  Family  is  a  branch  of 
the  geraniums 
and  the  pelar- 


84 


PELARGONIUM  STORIES.  85 

goniums,  which  you  know  we  always  call  geraniums. 
The  crane's  bills  and  herb  Roberts  and  all  their  near 
relations  of  course  are  geraniums,  and  some  say  the 
wood  sorrels  belong  to  this  distinguished  family. 

Whether  these  all  belong  to  one  family  or  not,  one 
thing  is  certain :  they  are  all  agreeable  to  us,  and 
are  not  so  very  numerous  even  when  taken  all 
together.  The  whole  of  them  do  not  number  half 
so  many  as  do  the  branches  of  the  Convolvulus 
Family. 

Like  the  race  of  white  people,  they  belong  princi- 
pally to  temperate  climates. 

They  do  not  all  belong  to  our  climate,  however. 

The  nasturtiums,  for  instance,  are  South  Ameri- 
cans and  Mexicans.  They  like  to  keep  warm  better 
than  some  other  members  of  their  family,  and  their 
seeds  cannot,  as  a  rule,  live  through  our  cold  winters. 
But  if  we  gather  the  seeds  and  put  them  away  out  of 
the  fierce  winter  cold  and  plant  them  in  the  spring, 
then  the  nasturtiums  will  grow  their  best  and  please 
us  with  their  bright  flowers.  We  cannot  help  liking 
them,  they  are  so  jolly  with  their  gay  flowers  and 
their  round  leaves  with  twisting  stalks. 

We  like  them,  too,  because  the  flower  stem  curls  up 
and  draws  the  seeds  under  the  leaves  out  of  the  way 
of  the  young  buds  that  are  waiting  to  bloom. 


86  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

I  do  not  know  whether  wild  nasturtiums  are  as 
large  and  bright  as  the  cultivated  ones.  Very  likely 
not,  as  people  have  taken  great  pains  to  make  them 
large  and  bright  by  selecting  the  seeds  of  the  largest 
flowers  from  year  to  year  and  giving  them  good  soil 
in  which  to  grow. 

Perhaps  the  members  of  the  Geranium  Family  we 
really  know  best  are  the  pelargoniums  from  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope.  It  is  about  as  warm  in  their  African 
home  as  it  is  in  our  Florida,  so  of  course  they  cannot 
live  out  of  doors  through  our  cold  Northern  winters. 
But  we  take  them  in  the  house  when  cold  weather 
comes,  and  sometimes  put  them  in  the  cellar. 

Of  course  they  do  not  grow  much  in  the  cellar, 
but  they  rest  there,  and  when  they  are  taken  out  in 
the  spring  are  all  ready  to  wake  up  and  blossom. 

The  whole  Geranium  Family  seems  to  take  extra 
care  of  its  seeds. 

We  know  how  the  nasturtium  curls  up  its  stem  so 
as  to  draw  the  seeds  below  the  leaves  out  of  the  way, 
giving  the  buds  a  chance  to  come  out,  and  also  pro- 
tecting the  seeds. 

The  pelargoniums  do  not  do  that,  but  they  do 
something  much  more  elaborate  for  the  sake  of  their 
seed-children,  as  we  know.  They  give  them  a  para- 
chute to  fly  with,  for  one  thing.  A  parachute,  you 


PELARGONIUM    STORIES. 


87 


know,  is  a  contrivance  by  which  bodies  can  be  sus- 
tained in  the  air  while  falling  or  blowing  along  in 
the  wind. 

But  the  parachute  is  not  all,  —  they  give  them  an 
auger  by  which  to  bore  into  the  ground  and  plant 
themselves. 

The  North  American  crane's  bill 
seeds  perform  in  a  very  similar  way, 
their  flowers  and  seed-cases  being 
quite  like  those  of  the  pelargonium. 

How  do  you  suppose  North  Ameri- 
can crane's  bills  came  to  be  like  South 
African  pelargoniums? 

This  is  a  matter  which  needs  in- 
vestigating. 

The  pelargoniums  are  not  as  juicy 
as  the  nasturtiums,  but  they  are 
somewhat  juicy,  and  their  juice  has 
a  slightly  acid  taste  instead  of  being 
pungent,  like  the  nasturtium  juice. 

Where  pelargoniums  live  out  of  doors  the  year 
round  they  grow  very  large  and  have  stems  that  are 
quite  woody. 

Some  of  them,  as  we  know,  are  useful  to  the 
human  race  as  well  as  ornamental,  supplying  food 
and  an  oil  highly  esteemed  as  a  perfume. 


88 


FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 


The  wood  sorrels  do  not  look  much  like  the  rest 
of  the  Geranium  Family.  But  they  do  resemble  it 
in  their  habit  of  caring  for  their  seeds.  Out  in  the 
fields  you  will  find  the  small,  yellow-flowered  sheep 
sorrel,  with  its  clover-like,  sour-tasting  leaves.  Now 
hunt  for  a  seed-pod.  They  are  pretty  little  things 
that  stand  up  something  like  Christmas  candles. 
Touch  a  ripe  one  and  it  splits  open  down  each  of  its 
five  cells  and  shows  you  a  row  of  white  seeds  in  each. 
You  think  the  seeds  are  not  ripe  because  they  are 
white,  and  you  touch  one  of  them.  What  has 
happened  ?  That  seed  surely  exploded !  No,  there 
it  is  —  the  other  side  of  the  table,  not  white,  but 
dark  brown.  Queer  performance,  this.  You  touch 
another  and  another,  and  at  last  you  get  to  under- 


stand    it.      Each    seed    is 
elastic  white  covering,  and 
suddenly  curls      up, 
much  as  the  I    impatiens 
does,  and      N^     sends 
the  seed      i  within 
it  flying ! 


surrounded  by  an 

this     I    it  is  that 

very  ( 

pod 


PELARGONIUM    STORIES.  89 

When  night  comes  the  sorrel  goes  to  sleep.  Its 
leaflets  droop  and  shut  together  as  you  see  in  the 
picture,  and  the  flowers,  too,  close.  The  sorrel  loves 
the  sunshine,  and  often  does  not  open  on  cloudy  days. 

There  are  a  great  many  sorrels  in  the  world 
Besides  our  sheep  sorrel ;  in  fact,  we  are  told  there 
i  are  about  two  hundred  and  five  of  them ! 

We  have  only  three  or  four  out  of  all  that  number, 
.and  they  are  not  all  yellow  like  the  sheep  sorrel. 
f:  'One  that  lives  in  the  cool  Northern  woods  is  white, 
;  with  delicate  pink  veins.  Pretty  little  things  they 
are,  and  farther  South  there  lives  a  pretty  violet  one. 

Like  the  pelargoniums,  the  sorrels  are  to  be  found 
at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  In  fact,  most  of  the 
two  hundred  and  five  kinds  live  there  and  in  South 
America. 

r  , 

--Like  the  pelargoniums,  too,  the  South  African 
sorrejs  are  much  larger  and  brighter  than  their 
American  relatives. 

We  like  them  so  well  we  raise  them  in  our  green- 
houses and  window  boxes.  They  are  much  larger 
than  our  wild  sorrels  and  have  bright  pink  or  white 
or  yellow  corollas. 

Down  in  Peru,  too,  there  grows  a  very  useful 
sorrel ;  they  call  it  "  oca,"  and  raise  it  for  its  potato- 
like  tubers  which  the  people  eat. 


90  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

The  Mexicans  also  have  a  sorrel  with  edible  bulbs 
and  bright  red  flowers.  In  fact,  the  sorrel,  like  the 
potato,  has  a  habit  of  storing  up  plenty  of  under- 
ground food  which  is  also  good  food  for  man,  and 
several  species  of  sorrel  are  raised  for  this  purpose  in 
different  parts  of  the  world. 

In  those  places,  instead  of  a  potato  field  you  have 
a  sorrel  field. 

We  often  eat  the  leaves  of  the  wood  sorrel  for  the 
sake  of  their  pleasant  acid  taste.  The  proper  name 
of  the  sorrel  is  "  oxalis,"  and  comes  from  a  Greek 
word  meaning  "acid."  But  if  we  were  to  extract 
this  acid  from  the  sorrel  and  then  eat  it,  we  would 
have  a  serious  time,  for  in  its  concentrated  form  it 
is  a  fearful  poison.  It  is  sold  under  the  misleading 
name  of  "  salt  of  lemons,"  and  for  this  reason  people 
often  ignorantly  taste  it,  thinking  that  "salt  of 
lemons "  can  do  them  no  harm. 

This  dangerous  "  salt  of  lemons  "  is  very  useful  in 
calico  printing,  in  dyeing,  and  in  the  bleaching  of 
flax  and  straw. 

The  next  time  you  come  across  a  patch  of  sheep 
sorrel,  stop  and  think  of  all  it  and  its  relatives  are 
able  to  do  for  us. 

We  usually  think  of  the  Geranium  Family  as  being 
merely  ornamental ;  but,  as  we  have  seen,  some  kinds 


PELARGONIUM    STORIES. 


91 


of  tropaeolum,  several  kinds  of  sorrel,  and  at  least 
one  kind  of  pelargonium  yield  edible  tubers  which 
are  eaten  in  different  parts  of  the  world,  and  the 
modest  little  oxalis  yields  a  substance  valuable  for 
manufacturing  purposes. 

Even  our  commonplace  crane's  bill 
that  blooms  so  abundantly  in  the  woods 
in  early  summer  has  something  for  us, 
for  from  its  roots  a  medicine  is  obtained. 


HYACINTH    STORIES. 


THE    HYACINTH. 


OUT  in  the  garden  there  's  some- 
thing so  dear ! 

Just  as  dear, 

Do  you  hear  ? 
Something    that    comes    in    the 

spring  of  the  year 

Fragrant  as  roses  and  fresh  as  the  dew, 
Purple  and  pink  and  violet  too. 

Something  new, 

Darling  too. 
Guess  what  it  is  and  I  '11  show  it  to  you ! 


or- 


SIGNS  OF   SPRING. 


OUT  of  doors  are  signs  of  spring.  The  buds  on 
the  trees  look  full,  and  some  are  beginning  to  burst. 
But  there  is  very  little  life  as  yet. 

Only  in  the  hyacinth  bed  it  is  different, 
for  there  the  hyacinths  have  waked  up ; 
their  stiff  leaves  have  opened  the  door  of 
the  earth  for  the  blossoms  to  come  out. 
The  flower  clusters  are  nearly  ready  to 
bloom,  but  the  buds  are  still  green.  The 
tall  stem  has  lifted  them  up  into  the  air 
and  sunlight,  and,  although  the  air  is  still 
cold,  they  continue  to  grow. 

Soon  the  green  buds  undergo  a  change. 
The  topmost  one  on  each  flower  cluster 
softens  to  a  tender  blue  or  pink. 

The  green  buds  grow  lovely  as  they 
stand  on  their  stems  in  the  sun.  Delicate  tints 
steal  over  them,  the  green  color  fades  away,  and 
many  colors  take  its  place. 

They  open  into  charming  flowers  and  give  forth  a 

96 


HYACINTH    STORIES. 


97 


delightful  fragrance.  The  whole  garden  is  sweet 
with  the  odor  of  hyacinths,  and  we  feel  that  the 
beautiful  summer  has  sent  us  a  messenger. 


THE   HYACINTH'S   SCEPTRE. 


KINGS  bear  a  sceptre,  and  so  do  I. 

Theirs  is  a  symbol  of  power,  and  so  is  mine. 

Theirs  is  a  costly  rod  with  an  emblem  at  the  top 

Mine  is  a  tall  green  rod  bearing  flower  bells. 

My  sceptre  is  called  a  "scape." 

"  Scape  "  means  u  sceptre,"  the  sign  of  kings. 


98 


TUNICS. 


A  TUNIC,  as  everybody  knows,  is  a  dress  worn  by 
the  old  Romans.  The  Greeks  wore  a  garment  very 
much  like  that  of  the  Romans, 
and  it,  too,  is  often  called  a  tunic. 

Tunics  did  very  well  in  a  climate 
where  it  was  always  summer  and 
upon  people  who  did  not  have  to 
hurry  about  and  work  hard.  But, 
graceful  as  they  are,  and  appropri- 
ate to  Greece  and  Italy,  they  would 
hardly  be  suitable  for  an  American 
business  costume  in  midwinter. 
For  a  tunic  is  not  very  close  fitting. 
It  is  a  loose  garment  which  would 
be  apt  to  fly  away  in  our  Northern 
gales. 

The  tunic  was  sometimes  con- 
fined at  the  waist  by  a  girdle  and  sometimes  let  to 
hang  loose. 

We  do  not  wear  tunics,  but  we  admire  them  very 
much  in  pictures,  for  they  show  the  beautiful  lines  of 


100  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

the  human  form  instead  of  concealing  and  altering 
them  and  making  them  ugly  by  ridiculous  and  tight- 
fitting  clothes  —  very  often  tight  in  the  wrong  place, 
as  is  the  case  with  modern  garments. 

But  there  are  tunics  worn  in  America,  and  they 
are  never  tight  in  the  wrong  place,  though,  truth  to 
tell,  they  are  not  loose  and  flowing  like  the  Roman 
or  Greek  tunic. 

Perhaps  you  do  not  know  that  so  commonplace  an 
object  as  an  onion  wears  a  tunic,  yet  I  assure  you  it 
is  true.  And  the  onion  does  not  come  from  Rome  or 
Greece,  —  that  is,  probably  not.  As  far  as  we  can 
find  out,  that  homely  vegetable  first  saw  the  light  in 
the  southwestern  part  of  Asia,  but  it  was  known  in 
Rome  and  Greece  at  a  very  early  date,  and  lived 
in  those  places  long  before  it  found  its  way  to  us. 

So  it  has  seen  more  tunics  than  we  have,  if  it  is 
not  a  native  Greek  or  Roman.  Not  that  its  garments 
look  at  all  like  a  classical  tunic ! 

Probably  its  bulb  is  said  to  be  "  tunicated,"  or 
covered  with  tunics,  because  the  different  scales  wrap 
about  it  like  so  many  garments,  and  in  a  general 
way  the  word  "  tunic  "  is  used  to  mean  any  garment. 

The  hyacinth,  too,  has  a  tunicated  bulb.  It  came 
from  the  Levant,  a  country  where  people  wear  loose 
garments  like  the  Greek  and  Roman  tunic.  I  do 


HYACINTH  STORIES.  101 

not  think,  however,  the  bulbs  are  called  "  tunicated  " 
because  they  came  from  the  lands  where  tunics  are 
worn.  I  think  it  is  merely  a  name  the  botanists 
gave  them  for  convenience  to  tell  that  they  were 
covered  by  coats  or  scales. 

What  do  you  suppose  a  hyacinth  tunic  is,  anyway  ? 
Merely  a  leaf  scale !  That  is,  instead  of  growing 
into  a  leaf  it  remained  a  scale,  and  some  of  the  scales 
on  a  full-grown  bulb  are  really  the  lower  parts  of  the 
leaves.  The  upper  part  has  fallen  off  and  left  the 
fleshy  base  to  feed  the  plant. 

Tulips  have  tunics  too,  and  so  have  many  other 
plants.  And  bulb  tunics  are  a  very  convenient  sort 
of  garment  to  have,  for  they  not  only  wrap  up  the 
plant,  but  feed  it ! 

They  answer  the  s£me  purpose  that  tubers  do  on 
potato  roots.  You  know  what  tubers  are?  They 
are  just  swollen  portions  of  underground  stems. 
When  you  eat  your  next  potato  remember  it  is  a 
tuber,  and  that  a  tuber  is  merely  a  short  piece  of 
stem  very  much  thickened.  If  you  cannot  believe 
this,  look  a  potato  in  the  eyes.  There  you  will  see 
the  truth,  for  the  eyes  are  merely  the  joints  of  the 
stem,  and  at  each  is  a  little  bud  that  in  the  spring 
will  start  to  grow,  just  like  the  buds  on  the  branches 
of  a  tree.  The  bud  grows  at  the  expense  of  the 


102 


FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 


material  in  the  tuber,  and  the  hyacinth  grows  at  the 
expense  of  the  food  stored  in  the  bulb.  Of  course, 
after  a  while  green  leaves  form  and  make  more  food, 
but  the  very  first  food  comes  from  the  thick  under- 
ground scales. 

The  hyacinth  belongs  to  the  royal   Lily  Family, 
and  is  a  very  great  favorite  with  people  all  over  the 
world.      Sometimes   its   flowers   are    single 
and  sometimes  double,  and  they  always  give 
forth  a  delightful  fragrance.     Its  home,  as 
we  know,  is  in  the  Levant,  a  country  made 
up  of  the  islands  and  the  coast  along 
the  eastern  part  of  the  Mediterranean 
Sea,  particularly  of  Asia  Minor   and 
Syria. 

It  grows  so  readily  and  comes  up 
so  early  in  the  spring  and  is  so  lovely 
it   is   no   wonder   people    everywhere 
cherish   it.      Its    bulb    is    large    and 
fleshy,  and,  as  we  know,  is  made  up 
of  thick  scales.     These  scales  are  full 
of  starch  and  other  food  materials  to 
feed  the  young  plant. 
For  the  young  plant  is  in  the  very  center  of  the 
bulb,  with  the  fleshy  scales  folded  about  it  very  much 
as  the  scales  are  folded  about  a  tree  bud.     In  fact,  a 


HYACINTH  STORIES.  103 

bulb  is  very  much  like  a  bud.  The  bottom  of  the 
bulb  is  a  very  short,  broad  stem.  The  scales  grow 
on  this  stem  as  the  leaves  do  on  a  branch.  They 
are  alternate  in  arrangement,  but  packed  so  closely 
together  you  have  to  look  very  carefully  in  order  to 
discover  that  they  are  arranged  like  leaves  on  a  stem. 
After  all,  as  we  know,  these  scales  are  only  modified 
leaves.  The  bracts  of  the  pelargonium  are  leaves 
modified  to  protect  the  young  buds,  and  the  scales 
of  the  hyacinth  are  leaves  modified  to  protect  and 
feed  the  plant  within. 

For  what  do  you  think?  At  the  very  center  of 
the  hyacinth  bulb  is  a  tiny  flower  cluster  wrapped 
about  by  half  a  dozen  tiny  leaves  !  These  are  white 
and  delicate  and  very,  very  small.  But  in  the  spring 
they  grow  and  come  out  of  the  bulb  in  the  form  of 
green  leaves  and  bright  flowers. 


THE    BEE. 


I  AM  a  rollicking  bumblebee. 
I  sail  through  the  air  as  it  pleases  me. 
I  sail  by  the  trees  and  around  the  flowers ; 
I  love  the  sun  and  hate  the  showers. 


I  -have  a  taste  does  credit  to  me ; 
I  never  eat  bread  and  such  fiddle-dee-dee. 
For  honey  and  pollen  's  the  sensible  food ; 
They  favor  digestion  and  suit  the  mood. 

I  sleep  in  my  nest  all  winter  long, 

But  rush  fearlessly  forth  in  the  March  wind's 

song, 
For  I  'm  sure  there 's  some  one 

waiting  for  me, 
Since  a  hyacinth  blue  's  in  love 

with  this  bee ! 


104 


106 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS. 


NECTAR  GUIDES. 


THE   bee  is  always  in  a  hurry.     She  flies  from 
flower  to  flower  as  fast  as  she  can. 

She  sees  the  flowers  far  off  and  comes  straight  to 
them,  choosing  the  brightest.  She 
has  learned  that  the  bright  flowers 
hold  much  honey  and  often  have 
guides  to  the  nectary,  so  that  she 
does  not  have  to  hunt  about,  but, 
alighting  on  a  flower,  follows  the 
bright  guide.  Sometimes  it  is  a 
spot  in  front  of  the  nectary  and 
sometimes  a  line  leading  to  it.  It 
leads  her  at  once  by  the  shortest 
path  to  the  nectar,  and  since  she 
is  in  such  haste,  the  nectar  guides 
are  her  good  friends,  helping  her  to  save  time. 


107 


CELLS. 


P 


CELLS  are  a  matter  of  im- 
portance. 

To  be  sure  there  are  cells 

and    cells,    and    some    are 
d^P)  ^y 

vy*/    much  more  important  than 

, — ^^^\  others.  (^) 

S*  (  For  instance,  there  are  prison  cells,  more 's 

N  the  pity,  and  anther  cells  and  honeycomb  cells 
and  ovary  cells  and  many  more  like  them.  All  these 
are  small,  hollow  spaces  with  walls  around  them. 

But  there  is  another  kind  of  cell,  more  important 
than  all  these  others  put  together,  and  they  are  not 
hollow  and  do  not  always  have  a  wall. 

Perhaps  you  are  not  very  much  interested  in  cells, 
but  you  had  better  be  in  these  we  are  going  to  talk 
about,  for  they  have  a  great  deal  to  do  with  football 
games  and  dancing  and  going  to  parties  and  picnics. 
In  fact,  without  them  there  could  be  no  football  and 
no  dancing  and  no  parties  nor  picnics. 

All  these  things  depend  upon  cells.  So  we  may  as 
well  begin  at  once  to  find  out  what  they  are. 


108 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    109 

These  cells  that  we  are  going  to  talk  about  are 
alive.  They  are  made  of  protoplasm.  You  do  not 
know  what  protoplasm  is  ?  I  can  tell  you  it  is  time 
you  did  then,  for  if  it  hadTiot  been  for  protoplasm 
you  would  not  be  in  the  land  of  the  living.  The 
protoplasm  made  you ;  so  if  you  are  not  interested  in 
it,  /  think  you  ought  to  have  been  a  cabbage  or  a 
squash  or  a  liriodendron  or  some  other  thoughtless 
vegetable  not  expected  to  be  interested  in  proto- 
plasm. 

Like  a  good  many  other  interesting  things,  proto- 
plasm cannot  usually  be  seen  by  the  naked  eye ;  it 
is  in  such  small  quantities  that  it  takes  a  microscope 
to  find  it.  And  when  you  have  found  it,  so  far  as 
its  looks  are  concerned,  it  would  hardly  seem  to  pay 
for  the  trouble,  for  to  the  eye  it  is  nothing  but  a 
colorless,  jelly-like  substance.  It  looks  more  like 
the  white  of  an  egg  than  anything  else.  But  re- 
member it  is  not  safe  to  judge  protoplasm  or  people 
by  looks  alone. 

Napoleon  was  small,  and  he  was  not  handsome ; 
yet  if  you  had  seen  him,  you  would  have  seen  the 
greatest  man  living  in  the  world  at  that  time. 

So  when  you  look  at  protoplasm  you  see  sonic- 
thing  very  much  more  wonderful  than  it  seems.  In 
fact,  the  great  Napoleon  himself  owed  his  physical 


110  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

life  to  protoplasm,  as  did  also  Shakespeare  and  Plato, 
and  every  person  who  has  ever  lived,  for  protoplasm 
is  the  only  living  matter  in  the  world. 

You  cannot  understand  that  all  in  a  minute,  but 
you  begin  to  see  that  protoplasm  is  rather  important, 
and  as  well  worth  knowing  about  as  the  latest 
fashion  in  bicycles  or  sleeve  patterns. 

Sometimes  a  bit  of  protoplasm  lives  all  by  itself. 
It  is  just  a  little  speck  of  colorless,  jelly-like  sub- 
stance. Yet  it  can  do  a  number  of  things.  One 
little  creature,  which  is  only  a  bit  of  protoplasm,  has 
a  name  much  larger  than  itself.  We  call  it  " Amoeba." 
Rather  a  pretty  name,  on  the  whole,  and  very 

uncommon.     I  doubt  if  you  know  a  single  person 

by  that  name. 

It  is  a  name,  too,  that  everybody  ought  to  know. 

Well,  as  I  told  you  before,  and  shall  probably  tell 
you  a  great  many  more  times,  for  I  do  not  want  you 
to  forget  it,  the  amoeba  is  only  a  bit  of  protoplasm. 

Yet  it  can  go  about.  You  watch  it  some  fine  day 
under  your  microscope  and  see  it  travel.  It  runs  out 
a  little,  thin  bit  of  its  body,  so  /orv  and  then  the 

(ti&ySp9 

rest  of  the  body  sort  of  pulls  ^-</  itself  up  to 
that.  In  this  way,  by  putting  out  little  finger-like 
projections  and  drawing  the  rest  of  the  body  up  to 
them,  it  can  move  quite  a  distance  if  you  give  it 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    Ill 

time  enough.  You  can  imagine  so  changeable  a 
creature  as  the  amoeba  can  scarcely  be  found  twice  of 
the  same  shape,  and  how  its  friends  recognize  it  is 
more  than  I  can  tell.  Suppose  you  were  in  the  habit 
of  changing  your  shape  whenever  you  moved,  being 
long  and  thin  one  minute,  short  and  thick  another, 
having  fourteen  arms  one  day  and  none  the  next? 
How  could  you  expect  people  to  know  you  when  they 
met  you  ? 

But  perhaps  the  amoeba  has  an  unsocial  nature 
and  does  not  care  whether  it  is  recognized  or  not. 

Because  it  changes  its  shape  so  often  the  amoeba 
has  received  its  pretty  name.  For  "  amoeba,"  you 
must  know,  comes  from  a  Greek  word  meaning 
"  change." 

It  is  sometimes  called  "Proteus"  for  the  same 
reason.  Of  course  you  know  all  about  Proteus,  the 
sea  god  who  lived  at  the  bottom  of  the  ocean  and 
paid  homage  to  the  great  god  Neptune,  who  was  ruler 
of  the  seas.  Proteus  took  care  of  the  sea  calves,  and 
he  had  a  queer  way  of  changing  his  shape  whenever 
he  chose.  He  used  to  go  to  sleep  on  the  rocks  while 
the  calves  were  sunning  themselves,  and  because  he 
was  very  wise  and  could  help  people  who  were  in 
trouble,  they  used  to  go  there  and  catch  him.  But 
he  was  not  as  friendly  as  he  was  wise,  and  would 


112  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

never  tell  anything  unless  forced  to;  and  when  he 
found  himself  a  prisoner,  he  would  at  once  change 
his  form,  and  so  try  to  escape  by  frightening  his 
captors.  He  had  a  pleasant  habit  of  all  at  once 
changing  into  an  enormous  serpent  and  opening  a 
mouth  full  of  frightful  teeth ;  then,  if  that  did  not 
frighten  badly  enough,  he  would  all  at  once  turn  into 
a  bull  or  a  raging  fire  or  a  fierce  torrent.  He  has 
been  known  to  change  into  a  dozen  dreadful  things 
in  as  many  minutes,  so  no  wonder  his  name  has  come 
to  mean  "  something  that  changes."  And  no  wonder 
the  amoeba  is  called  "  proteus,"  not  that  it  indulges 
in  any  such  outrageous  transformations  as  the  sea 
god,  for  it  never  does  anything  worse  than  change 
the  shape  of  its  own  little  jelly-like  body. 

Although  it  can  move  along,  I  do  not  think  it 
would  amount  to  much  in  a  race,  as  it  only  moves  a 
few  inches  in  the  course  of  a  day ;  still  that  is  a  good 
deal,  considering  its  size. 

A  great  deal  depends  upon  size  in  this  world. 

You  could  go  as  far  in  ten  seconds  as  a  snail  could 
in  as  many  hours.  The  distance  would  not  count  for 
much  as  far  as  you  are  concerned,  but  it  would  be  a 
good  day's  work  for  the  snail.  So  when  an  amoeba 
travels  a  few  inches,  that  counts  for  as  much  in  its 
life  as  a  long  day's  walk  of  a  good  many  miles  would 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    113 

in  yours,  or  as  a  few  hundreds  of  miles  on  a  railway 
train. 

The  amoeba  can  do  more  than  travel.  If  you 
touch  one  it  will  shrink  together,  showing  that  this 
little  bit  of  protoplasm  has  a  sort  oifeelmg  power. 

When  it  is  hungry  it  eats.  For  an  amoeba  can 
get  as  hungry  as  anybody. 

Hunger  does  not  depend  upon  size.  You  can  get 
as  hungry  as  an  elephant,  although  you  cannot  eat 
as  much.  You  would  starve  to  death,  too,  as  soon  as 
an  elephant,  perhaps  sooner.  An  amoeba  no  doubt 
gets  as  hungry  as  you  do,  and  it  certainly  would 
starve  to  death  if  it  did  not  have  something  to  eat. 

How  can  it  eat  without  a  mouth  ?  Just  as  easily 
as  it  can  travel  without  feet.  You  do  not  know 
protoplasm  if  you  think  it  cannot  eat  when  it  is 
hungry.  Very  likely  the  reason  it  travels  about  is 
because  it  wants  to  find  something  good  to  eat.  It 
does  not  care  for  roast  turkey  and  cranberry  sauce, 
nor  for  apple  pie  and  plum  pudding. 

That  is  not  what  it  is  looking  for.  It  is  looking 
for  some  tiny  speck  of  food  smaller  than  itself. 

It  lives  in  the  water,  of  course.  It  would  dry  up 
if  it  were  out  in  the  air.  You  should  think  it  would 
melt  in  the  water  ?  Well,  it  does  not,  any  more 
than  a  jellyfish  melts.  When  it  comes  to  some  little 


114  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR  FRIENDS. 

speck  of  dead  plant  or  animal,  or,  for  all  I  know, 
to  some  living  speck  small  enough,  it  proceeds  to 
eat  it. 

It  glides  over  it  in  the  way  you  know  about,  and 
wraps  the  food  speck  up  in  its  body.  Then  it  draws 
out  all  the  good  part  of  the  food  into  its  own  sub- 
stance and  goes  on,  leaving  behind  the  waste 
particles. 

Do  you  not  think  that,  is  a  good  deal  for  an 
amoeba  to  be  able  to  do  ?  But  it  can  do  more 
than  this ;  it  can  divide  itself  in  two  and  make 
two  amoebae  out  of  one. 

The  little  amoeba  is  called  a  "cell."  After 
awhile  you  will  see  why.  The  whole  amoeba 
is  just  one  cell. 

As  to  whether  it  is  a  plant  or  an  animal 
you  will  have  to  ask  the  amoeba,  for  I  can- 
not tell  you.     Some  think  it  is  a  plant  and 
some  say  it  is  an  animal. 

I  do  not  think  it  makes  much  difference  which  you 
say  it  is. 

A  bit  of  protoplasm  living  by  itself  is  called  a 
"cell."" 

Many  plants  and  animals  have,  like  the  amoeba, 
only  one  cell.  Very  often  the  little  one-celled  being 
has  a  thick  outside  wall.  The  protoplasm  changes 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    115 

part  of  the  food  into  a  hard  substance,  that  is,  it 
builds  itself  a  wall. 

Very  often  cells  live  together  in  colonies  instead 
of  living  alone.  In  such  cases,  the  first  cell  divides 
into  two  cells,  but  the  two  stay  together  instead  of 
entirely  separating.  Then  each  of  these  two  cells 
divides  again,  and  the  four  cells  stay  together,  and 
so  it  goes  on  until  a  large  body  is  built  up  of  many 
cells. 

The  truth  is,  plants  are  only  collections  of  cells 
which  have  agreed  to  work  together.  Where  there 
is  but  one  cell,  it  has  to  do  all  sorts  of  work;  but 
where  there  are  many,  some  do  one  kind  of  work, 
some  another,  —  just  as  Robinson  Crusoe,  living  all 
alone  on  the  island  of  Juan  Fernandez,  had  to  do  all 
sorts  of  things  for  himself :  make  his  own  shoes  and 
clothes,  get  his  own  food  and  cook  it,  build  his  own 
house,  and  gather  his  own  wood.  But  in  a  town 
one  set  of  men  makes  shoes,  another  chops  wood, 
another  raises  vegetables  and  grain,  another  grinds 
the  grain,  and  another  bakes  the  bread ;  then  they 
all  exchange  with  each  other,  and  everybody  has 
enough  —  or  ought  to  have. 

So  in  the  plant  made  of  many  cells.  One  set  of 
cells  makes  hard  walls  to  protect  the  plant.  Another 
set  draws  up  water  from  the  earth  for  all  the  cells 


116  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

in  the  plant,  for  living  things  require  a  great  deal 
of  water.  Another  set  takes  gas  from  the  air  and 
changes  it  into  food.  Another  set  makes  tubes  for 
the  sap  to  flow  through.  Other  sets  do  other  things. 
Each  set  of  cells  does  something  for  the  whole  plant. 

If  you  look  at  a  leaf  or  a  bit  of  skin  from  a  stem 
under  a  microscope,  you  will  see  they  are  built  up  of 
cells,  as  a  house  is  built  of  bricks.  Only  the  cells 
are  not  placed  regularly  like  the  bricks  in  a  house, 
and  they  are  not  solid  like  bricks.  The  walls  of 
these  cells  are  sometimes  hard  and.  sometimes  soft, 
sometimes  tough  and  sometimes  tender ;  but  the  walls 
were  all  built  by  the  protoplasm  that  lived  in  them. 
Sometimes  the  protoplasm  leaves  the  little  house  it 
has  built  and  goes  somewhere  else. 

Then  the  empty,  wall -surrounded  space  is  left  like 
a  cell  of  honeycomb  before  the  honey  is  put  in,  or  an 
anther  cell  after  the  pollen  has  fallen  out  and  left 
nothing  in  it. 

Before  microscopes  were  as  perfect  as  they  are 
now,  these  empty  spaces  with  their  surrounding  walls 
were  discovered.  Even  where  the  cells  contained 
protoplasm  the  microscope  was  not  strong  enough 
to  reveal  it,  so  only  the  cell  walls  were  seen. 

It  was  soon  known  that  plants  were  built  up  of 
these  little  compartments,  and  because  they  resembled 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    117 


cells  in  being  small  and  shut  in  by  walls,  they  were 
called  "  cells."  After  awhile  it  was  discovered  that 
the  living  part  of  the  plant  was  the  colorless,  jelly- 
like  protoplasm  which  lived  in  the  cells. 
Yet  later,  particles  of  wall-less  protoplasm 
were  found  building  up  plants  and  animals. 
What  were  these  soft  little  protoplasmic 
atoms  to  be  called  ? 

The  plant  was  really  built  up  by  them, 
and  only  part  of  them  had  walls,  so  they 
were  called  by  the  name  the  people  had 
already  given  to  the  walled  spaces  which 
they  supposed  built  up  the  plant,  and  so  got 
the  name  of  "•  cells,"  which  is  not  at  all  an 
appropriate  name. 

There  is  nothing  quite  so  easy  as  to  be 
mistaken,  you  see,  and  the  botanists,  having 
seen  that  the  plant  was  built  of  little  com- 
partments, and  never  suspecting  the  presence 
of  the  living  protoplasm  lurking  in  some  of 
them,  had  called  the  compartments  "cells"; 
later,  when  the  protoplasm  was  discovered 
to  be  the  real  builder,  the  old  name  was  kept.  So 
you  see  how  the  amoeba  came  to  be  called  a  "cell." 

There  are  a  great  many  different  kinds  of  cells  in 
one  plant. 


Some  of  the  cellt 
one  plant. 


118  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

But  every  living  cell  has  very  much  the  same 
powers  as  the  amoeba,  though  in  many  of  them  some 
one  power  is  developed  at  the  expense  of  all  the  rest. 
In  this  way  different  sets  of  cells  are  able  to  perform 
different  kinds  of  work,  and  do  it  very  well  indeed. 

The  amoeba  is  not  the  only  single-celled  creature. 
There  are  a  great  many  different  kinds  of  single- 
celled  plants  or  animals,  and  some  of  them  take  very 
curious  and  beautiful  forms,  with  streamers  floating 
about  them. 

Such  are  not  protean,  like  the  amoeba;  they  do 
not  change  their  shapes. 

Plants  are  not  the  only  things  that  have  cells. 
Animals,  too,  are  built  up  of  them.  Animal  cells 
are  usually  softer  than  plant  cells,  because  they  very 
often  have  no  hard  walls.  Bone  cells  of  course  have 
hard  walls,  and  there  are  others,  but  most  of  the 
animal  cells  are  without  walls. 

So  you  see  all  living  things  are  built  of  cells,  and 
the  living  part  of  the  cells  is  the  protoplasm. 

You  yourself  are  built  up  of  millions  of  cells,  and 
without  the  help  of  protoplasm  you  would  not  be 
living,  for  protoplasm  made  your  cells,  and  proto- 
plasm is  the  only  thing  in  you  that  is  alive.  Your 
muscles  are  made  of  muscle  cells,  and  the  protoplasm 
in  them  moves,  and  when  the  muscle  cells  all  move 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    119 

together,  that  moves  your  arm  or  your  leg  or  your 
head  or  some  other  part  of  your  body. 

Since  your  muscle  cells  devote  themselves  to  mov- 
ing, they  do  not  try  to  do  much  else ;  so  other  cells 
digest  the  food  which  the  blood  carries  to  the  muscle 
cells.  Yet  other  cells  build  a  good  thick  skin  to  pro- 
tect the  soft  muscles,  and  yet  another  set  of  cells 
thinks  for  the  muscles,  and  tells  them  where  and  when 
and  how  to  move.  Each  set  of  cells  has  its  own  work. 

Your  brain  is  made  up  of  nerve  cells,  and  the  pro- 
toplasm in  them  in  some  way  enables  you  to  think 
and  feel.  Your  bone  cells  are  hard  and  resisting, 
your  sinew  cells  strong  and  flexible.  So  each  part 
of  your  body  is  made  up  of  different  kinds  of  cells. 

But  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  football  and 
parties  and  picnics  you  would  like  to  know? 

Why,  a  great  deal, 
to  be  sure.  If  it  were 
not  for  cells  and 
protoplasm  there 
would  be  no  people. 

And    how    could 
you   have    football 
games  and  picnics  with- 
out people,  I  should  like 
to  know  ? 


POLLEN   CELLS. 


IN  the  dark  little  dungeon  cells  of  the  anthers,  the 
pollen  grains  lie.  Hundreds,  and  some- 
times thousands  of  them,  are  packed  in 
there  as  closely  as  they  can  be.  But 
they  do  not  mind  it,  not  in  the  least. 
They  grow  and  get  ripe,  and  as  soon  as 
this  happens,  their  prison  door  opens 

out  they  pour. 

They  are  funny  little  things,  not 
at  all  what  they  seem  to  be.     For  you 
would  think  they  were  just  little  specks 
of  dust  of  almost  no  shape  at  all.     But  that  is 
your  fault,  or  rather  the  fault  of  your  eyes. 

You  see  your  eyes  were  not  meant  to 
look  at  things  so  tiny  as  pollen  grains. 
You  can  see  a  common  ball  or  even  a 
small  shot  very  well  indeed ;  but  when 
it  comes  to  pollen  grains  you  are  as 
blind  as  a  mole.  You  will  have  to  put 
on  your  spectacles  to  see  that,  I  can  tell 
you,  and  very  powerful  spectacles  they  will  have  to 


120 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    121 

be,  too.  The  best  spectacles  for  you  to  look  through 
are  the  ones  we  call  a  microscope.  *  Just  put  your 
eye  to  that  tube  and  you  will  see  what  you  will 
see,  for  there  are  pollen  grains  at  the  other  end  — 
pollen  grains  from  several  kinds  of  flowers ;  there 
are  some  in  the  corner  from  our  friend  the  morning- 
glory.  And  now  you  know  what  I  meant  when  I 
said  you  could  not  see  a  pollen  grain ;  for  those  little 
specks  of  dust  have  all  at  once  become  large  and 
important  objects.  Some  are  round  and  some  are 
not,  and  all  are  creased  or  pitted  or  ridged  or  covered 
with  little  points  or  marked  in  some  other  way. 
Now  you  see  why  they  stick  so  easily  to  the  hairs  on 
the  bee  or  the  butterfly  or  whatever  comes  visiting 
the  flowers  for  nectar.  They  are  not  smooth,  but 
all  roughened  over  by  these  ridges  and  points. 

And  this  is  not  the  end  of  it.  You  have  not  yet 
seen  a  pollen  grain.  You  have  only  seen  the  outside 
of  one. 

For  it  has  an  inside.  You  think  it  is  too  small  to 
have  anything  inside  of  it  ? 

I  can  tell  you  things  much  smaller  than  that  have 
something  inside  of  them.  The  truth  is,  these  things 
seem  so  small  because  we  are  so  large.  If  we  were 
as  small  as  they,  they  would  not  seem  small  at* all. 
They  would  seem  a  very  ordinary  size  indeed,  and 


122  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

we  would  expect  them  to  have  an  outside  and  an 
inside.  * 

The  truth  is,  pollen  grains  are  hollow.  They  are 
as  hollow  as  the  baby's  rubber  ball.  But  they  are 
not  empty.  The  baby's  rubber  ball  is  not  empty; 
it  is  full  of  air.  These  pollen  grains  are  not  full  of 
air.  If  you  were  to  see  what  is  in  them,  you  might 
not  think  it  very  important,  but  that  would  be  a 
great  mistake,  for  they  are  full  of  —  protoplasm ! 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is,  the  pollen  grain  is  a 
cell ;  it  has  a  wall  outside  and  is  made  of  protoplasm 
inside. 

Protoplasm,  you  remember,  is  the  material  out  of 
which  every  living  thing  is  made.  You  are  made 
from  protoplasm  yourself ;  flowers  are  made  from  it, 
too,  and  leaves  and  birds  and  everything  that  lives. 

So  you  see  if  a  pollen  grain  is  filled  with  proto- 
plasm, that  is  rather  a  serious  matter. 

This  pollen  grain,  small  as  it  is,  has  a  tough  outer 
skin.  It  is  not  as  tough  as  leather,  but  it  is  tough 
for  so  small  a  grain,  and  is  strong  enough  to  keep 
the  protoplasm  from  running  out. 

The  protoplasm  in  the  pollen  grain  is  what  the 
ovule  needs  to  nourish  it  and  make  it  able  to  grow. 
The  ovule,  too,  is  a  cell  filled  with  protoplasm,  and 
the  protoplasm  of  the  pollen  and  of  the  ovule  must 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    123 

somehow  come  together  before  the  ovule  can  do  any 
more  growing. 

You  know  how  the  bees  and  butterflies  and  all 
sorts  of  insects  carry  the  pollen  from  flower  to  flower 
and  dust  the  stigmas  with  it.  You  may  think  that 
when  a  pollen  grain  is  safely  landed  on  a  stigma  then 
the  rest  is  easy  enough.  But  if  you  suppose  the 
pollen  grain  can  pass  through  the  style  you  are  very 
much  mistaken.  It  cannot  even  pass  through  the 
stigma.  It  is  true,  the  tissues  of  both  style  and 
stigma  are  rather  loose,  and  that  the  style  is  some- 
times hollow.  But,  as  far  as  I  know,  the  pollen  never 
passes  through.  Small  as  it  is,  it  is  too  large  to  get 
through  the  tiny  openings  in  the  stigma,  and  then, 
you  know,  the  stigma  is  sticky  and  holds  it  fast. 

Here  is  an  interesting  state  of  affairs !  The  ovule 
cell  is  waiting  for  protoplasm,  and  the  pollen  cell  is 
anchored  safe  and  fast  at  the  stigma. 

But  you  may  be  sure  there  is  a  way  out  of  this 
difficulty. 

To  begin,  the  pollen  grain  has  two  coats,  a  tough 
outer  one  and  a  delicate  inner  one.  There  are  open- 
ings, or  at  least  weak  places,  in  the  outer  coat,  and 
after  the  pollen  has  lodged  on  the  moist  stigma,  the 
protoplasm  inside  swells  and  comes  bulging  through 
these  weak  places.  The  inner  coat  is  forced  out,  as 


124         FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 


though   some    extremely  small  fairy  had  stuck  her 

finger  through  the  wall  from  the  inside  and  pushed 

out  a  part  of  the  inner  lining.      Well, 

this  finger-like  part  that  comes  through 

the  wall  does  not  break  open,  but  begins 

to  grow.     It  grows  longer   and    longer 

until  a  tube  is  formed,  a  tube  so  small 

that  only  the  microscope  can  enable  us 

to  see  it. 

This  tube  pushes  its  way  through  the 
stigma  into  the  style;  there  it  continues  to 
grow  like  a  long  root,  only  it  is  not  a  root, 
and  it  is  hollow ;  and  the  protoplasm  from 
the  inside  of  the  pollen  grain  runs  down  this 
tube. 

You  can  guess  what  happens  next.  The 
tube  grows  and  grows;  it  finds  plenty  of  nourish- 
ment in  the  tissue  of  the  style,  which  is  made  of 
material  suitable  to  feed  it.  Of  course,  it  grows 
down  the  style  into  the  ovary,  because  the  style 
opens  into  the  ovary. 

When  it  reaches  the  ovary  it  finds  its  way  to  an 
ovule,  and  goes  in  at  a  little  door  which  the  ovule 
keeps  open  for  it. 

Now,  you  see,  there  is  an  open  path  between  the 
pollen  grain  and  the  ovule,  and  the  protoplasm  from 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    125 

the  pollen  grain  which  has  run  down  the  tube  enters 
the  ovule.  Here  it  passes  out  of  the  tube  by  break- 
ing through  the  delicate  wall,  and  unites  with  the 
protoplasm  of  the  ovule. 

Thus  the  ovule  is  fertilized.  It  is  nourished  and 
strengthened,  and  at  once  begins  to  grow  into  a 
seed. 

Meantime  the  shell  of  the  pollen  lies  on  the  stigma, 
a  little  dried-up,  empty  thing.  Its  work  is  done. 
Thanks  to  the  bee  or  the  butterfly  or  some  other 
flower-loving  friend,  it  has  been  taken  to  the  right 
place,  and  all  that  was  living  in  it,  its  protoplasm, 
goes  on  living  in  the  little  ovule. 

The  pollen  grains  the  bees  carry  home  have  a  very 
different  fate.  They  are  crushed  and  soaked  and 
kneaded  with  honey  and  fed  to  baby  bees. 

But  the  flowers  are  willing  the  bees  should  have 
some  to  live  on,  and  so  each  flower  makes  thousands 
more  than  it  needs.  You  see,  if  it  did  not  give  the 
bees  something  to  eat,  they  would  not  come  and  they 
could  not  live  on  honey  alone ;  they,  too,  need  the 
protoplasm  in  the  pollen  to  nourish  them. 

Some  kinds  of  flowers  use  their  own  pollen.  They 
do  not  need  the  bees  and  do  not  want  them.  So  they 
keep  their  pollen  shut  up  tightly  and  do  not  make 
any  honey  to  coax  the  bees  to  come.  But  nearly  all 


126  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FR1JSXDS. 

flowers  wish  to  have  other  pollen  than  their  own. 
And  this  they  can  only  get  by  the  help  of  other 
people's  wings,  as  they  have  none  of  their  own. 


THE    POLLEN. 


WHAT  does  the  pollen  do  ? 

It  helps  the  ovule  change  to  a 
seed. 

It  feeds  the  bees  and  the  wasps 
and  the  flies. 

But  above  all,  it  helps  the  ovule 
change  to  a  seed. 


127 


THE    ANTHERS. 


ANTHERS,  anthers,  full  of  pollen, 
Cunning  cupboards  of  the  bee, 

Stamen  flour  amply  hiding, 

What  have  you  for  me,  for  me  ? 
What  have  you  for  me  ? 


Pollen  have  I,  plenty  of  it, 
Pollen  for  my  darling  bee ; 

Pollen  every  day  I  blossom 
For  my  bee,  but  none  for 

thee, 
For  thee,  none  for  thee. 


128 


OVULE   CELLS. 


You  will  be  glad  to  know  that  the  little 
ovules  at  the  heart  of  the  morning-glory  and 
of  all  other  flowers  are  single  cells. 

They  have  an  outside  wall  and  are  filled 
with  protoplasm. 

When  a  pollen  cell  is  formed  from  the  in- 
side of  the  anther,  it  separates  and  is  no 
longer  connected  with  anything.  This  is  not 
the  case  with  the  ovule.  It  is  fastened  to 
the  ovary  by  a  little  stem,  for  it  will  stay 
there  and  grow;  and  it  must  have  a  way  to 
get  food  from  its  parent  plant.  It  gets  the 
food  through  this  little  stem. 

w   » 

You  know  what  happens  when  the  flower       i\ 
opens. 

The  bees  bring  pollen,  and  the  protoplasm 
of  the  pollen  joins  that  of  the  ovule.  As  soon 
as  this  happens  the  ovule  begins  to  change. 
We  say  it  grows.  It  gets  the  food  to  grow  on 
from  the  mother  plant  through  the  little  stem  which 
is  fastened  to  the  inside  of  the  ovary. 


129 


130  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

The  protoplasm  in  the  ovule  first  divides  and 
makes  two  cells  instead  of  one.  These  two  cells  do 
not  entirely  separate  from  each  other.  They  stay 
together  to  do  their  work.  Soon  each  of  them 
divides  into  more  cells.  These  cells  again  divide, 
and  this  continues  until  a  great  many  cells  are 
formed.  Meantime  the  ovule  has  increased  in  size 
as  well  as  complexity,  and  its  cells  do  several  differ- 
ent kinds  of  work.  In  the  morning-glory,  for  instance, 
some  build  a  hard  outer  wall  about  the  young  plant ; 
this  is  the  seed-case.  Other  cells  form  two  little 
leaves ;  others  make  a  little  stub  of  a  stem.  So  the 
change  goes  on  until  the  single-celled  ovule  becomes 
a  many-celled  seed  with  a  young  plant  rolled  up 
under  its  walls.  If  you  open  a  morning-glory  seed 
you  can  see  this  little  baby  plant,  only  you  will  have 
to  soak  the  seed  first  to  soften  the  food  that  is  stored 
about  the  young  plant. 

The  cells  made  this  food  to  nourish  it,  and  it  stays 
dry  and  hard  until  the  rain  moistens  it  in  the  spring, 
when  it  gets  soft,  like  boiled  starch,  and  is  then  ready 
for  the  little  plant  to  use.  When  the  ovules  grow  on 
one  plant  and  the  pollen  comes  from  another,  the  seeds 
will  contain  the  protoplasm  of  two  different  plants. 

Now  protoplasm  remembers  the  plant  it  came 
from,  and  tries  to  make  the  new  plant  like  it. 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    131 


The  ovule  protoplasm  tries  to  make  the  seed 
remember  the  plant  it  grows  on,  and  the  pollen 
protoplasm  tries  to  make  the  pollen  remember  the 
plant  it  comes  from. 

So  if  the  pollen  comes  from  a  plant  bearing  white 
flowers,  it  wants  the  seeds  to  grow  into  white- 
flowered  plants.  But  if  the  ovules  which  ferti- 
lizes it  grow  on  a  pink-flowered  plant,  they  try  to 
make  the  seeds  grow  into  pink-flowered  plants. 
Now  what  happens  ?  Very  likely  some  of  the 
flowers  will  be  white  and  some  of  them  pink. 
Some  will  take  after  the  plant  the  pollen  came 
from  and  some  after  the  one  the  ovule  came  from. 

But    sometimes    the    flowers 
will    be    a   mixture   of    both 
r<4^  plants  and  will  be  pink  and 


132  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

The  ovule  is  the  mother  part  of  the  plant  and  the 
pollen  is  the  father  part,  and  sometimes  the  seed- 
children  take  after  the  mother,  sometimes  after  the 
father,  and  sometimes  after  both. 

This  is  very  strange  and  we  cannot  quite  under- 
stand it.  How  can  the  protoplasm  remember  the 
exact  shade  and  color  of  the  plant  it  came  from? 
How  can  it  make  seeds  that  grow  into  plants  just 
like  the  old  plants? 

Protoplasm,  you  are  a  great,  a  very  great 
mystery ! 

By  knowing  about  pollen  and  ovules  we  are  able  to 
help  form  a  great  many  lovely  new  flowers  and  fruits. 

We  get  variegated  flowers  by  fertilizing  a  flower 
of  one  color  with  pollen  from  a  flower  of  another 
color. 

When  we  do  this  we  must  cover  over  the  plant 
with  a  piece  of  netting  just  before  it  blossoms,  so 
the  bees  and  butterflies  cannot  get  ahead  of  us  and 
fertilize  the  plant.  Then  we  must  put  a  bit  of 
pollen  from  one  flower  on  the  stigma  of  the  flower 
we  want  to  experiment  with. 

We  must  always  use  the  pollen  from  the  same 
kind  of  a  plant,  however. 

It  would  be  of  no  use  to  put  nasturtium  pollen 
on  a  morning-glory  stigma,  for  instance,  for  it  could 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    133 

not  affect  the  ovule  in  the  least.  The  protoplasm 
knows  in  some  way  its  own  plant  and  will  not  fer- 
tilize any  other. 

This  is  a  very  good  thing,  otherwise  we  might 
have  a  funny  mixture  of  all  sorts  of  plants. 

Many  delicious  fruits  have  been  produced  by 
fertilizing  one  plant  with  pollen  from  another. 

New  varieties  of  grapes  and  berries  are  constantly 
obtained  in  this  way. 

If  you  live  on  a  farm  or  have  a  garden,  you  might 
try  to  develop  some  new  kinds  of  berries  or  fruits. 
You  might  not  succeed,  but  it  would  do  no  harm 
to  try- 


CHLOROPHYLL. 


CHLOROPHYLL    is     plant 
green. 

That   is  what   the    word 
means. 

We  are  so  used  to  seeing 
green  leaves  that  we  think  very 
little  about  it. 

It  probably  never  has  occurred  to 
most  of  us  that  the  green  coloring- 
matter  of  plants  can  be  of   much 
importance.     Yet  it  is  one  of  the 
most  important  things  in  the  world. 
Like  many  other  things,  it  is  not 
what  it  seems.     It  is  not  merely  a 
dye  as  one  might  suppose,  but 
much  more  than  that. 

We  cannot  really  see  what 
it  is  without  a  microscope, 
and  when  we  look  at  a  piece 
of  green  leaf  through  the  microscope  we  are  sur- 
prised to  find  the  leaf  is  not  green  at  all. 


134 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    135 

It  is  colorless  like  glass,  but  in  the  cells  just 
behind  the  skin  cells  we  see  little  roundish  green 
bodies  packed  away.  These  are  the  chlorophyll 
grains,  and  when  there  are  a  great  many  of  them 
close  together  they  show  through  the  skin  and  make 
the  whole  plant  green. 

The  skin  protects  them,  you  see,  and  yet  it  is 
transparent  and  allows  the  light  to  get  to  them, 
which  is  a  matter  of  great  importance  to  the  chloro- 
phyll grains,  for  they  are  hard  workers,  but  cannot 
do  a  single  thing  without  sunlight. 

Chlorophyll  grains  lie  just  behind  the  skin  cells 
in  all  parts  of  the  plant  that  look  green.  The  cells 
they  lie  in  are  often  long  with  their  short 
ends  towards  the  skin.  Leaves  contain 
several  layers  of  chlorophyll  cells.  The 
inner  ones  are  not  long  like  the  outer  ones, 
and  do  not  contain  so  many  chlorophyll 
grains.  In  the  illustration,  a,  a  represent  the  upper 
and  lower  skin  and  b  the  cells  containing  chlorophyll. 
The  under  side  of  a  leaf  usually  has  fewer  chlorophyll 
grains  in  its  cells,  for  the  light  is  not  so  bright  there, 
and  chlorophyll  needs  plenty  of  light. 

Sometimes  the  cells  in  the  middle  of  a  leaf,  that 
is,  halfway  between  the  upper  and  lower  surfaces, 
have  no  chlorophyll  at  all. 


136  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR  FRIENDS. 

Now  what  do  you  suppose  is  the  work  the  chloro- 
phyll grains  have  to  do  ? 

You  never  could  guess,  so  I  may  as  well  tell  you 
at  once.  If  it  is  not  making  sugar,  it  is  something 
very  like  it.  To  begin  at  the  beginning,  which  is  a 
long  way  from  sugar,  but  which  will  certainly  bring 
us  to  it,  I  must  tell  you  that  these  little  round  green 
chlorophyll  people  have  a  strong  attraction  for  car- 
bon dioxide,  which  you  know  is  a  gas  and  is  always 
found  in  the  air.  You  know,  too,  we  breathe  it  out 
as  an  impurity.  Probably  you  did  not  know  it  had 
anything  to  do  with  sugar,  but  it  has  a  very  great 
deal  to  do  with  it. 

The  chlorophyll  grains  attract  carbon  dioxide  as 
strongly  as  a  magnet  attracts  bits  of  iron.  The 
carbon  dioxide  in  the  air  goes  through  the  pores 
in  the  leaf  skin,  right  through  everything  to  the 
cell  where  the  chlorophyll  lies.  You  know  carbon 
dioxide  is  made  of  carbon  and  oxygen.  The  plant 
needs  a  great  deal  of  carbon,  for  nearly  all  its  hard 
parts  are  made  of  it.  Wood  for  one  thing  is  nearly 
all  carbon. 

As  soon  as  carbon  dioxide  comes  where  chloro- 
phyll is,  the  chlorophyll,  which  of  course  is  chiefly 
made  of  protoplasm,  tears  it  to  pieces.  It  pulls 
the  carbon  away  from  the  oxygen  and  the  oxygen 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    137 

rushes  out  through  the  pores  back  into  the  air. 
But  the  carbon  stays  behind. 

You  see  oxygen  is  a  gas  and  carbon  is  a  solid. 
When  carbon  and  oxygen  unite  in  a  certain  way, 
they  make  another  gas,  our  carbon  dioxide. 

It  is  very  queer  that  carbon  should  have  the  form 
of  a  gas  when  united  with  oxygen,  and  I  cannot  ex- 
plain it  here.  You  must  just  remember  that  it  is  so. 

When  the  oxygen  flies  away  into  the  air  again 
and  leaves  the  carbon  behind,  the  work  of  the 
chlorophyll  has  but  just  begun.  Raw  carbon  is  of  no 
use  whatever,  —  no  more  use  than  carbon  dioxide, 
which  we  know  is  good  for  nothing  to  the  plant  or 
else  the  chlorophyll  would  not  tear  it  to  pieces. 

But  if  the  chlorophyll  can  only  get  a  little  water, 
something  worth  while  will  happen.  This  it  can 
always  do,  as  the  roots  take  good  care  to  send  it 
plenty. 

Water,  you  know,  is  made  of  two  gases,  hydrogen 
and  oxygen,  united  together. 

Here,  you  see,  gases  unite  and  make  a  liquid. 
Well,  chlorophyll  has  a  way  of  its  own  of  uniting 
the  carbon  it  took  away  from  the  carbon  dioxide 
with  the  hydrogen  and  oxygen  it  gets  from  the 
water  and  forming  a  solid,  which  the  plant  cannot 
live  without. 


138 


FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 


Now  what    do  you   suppose    this  new  solid   is  ? 
Probably  you  never  could  guess. 
It  is  starch,  just  starch  ! 

Chlorophyll  makes  starch  out  of  carbon,  hydro- 
gen, and  oxygen. 

Sometimes  it  makes  sugar  and  oil  out  of  them, 
but  its  work  is  most  generally  starch-making. 

The  carbon,  you  remember,  it  gets  from  the  car- 
bon dioxide  of  the  air,  and  the  hydrogen  and  oxygen 
from  the  water  the  roots  send  it. 

The  strangest  thing  about  all  this  is,  chlorophyll 
is  the  only  thing  that  can  make  starch. 

Perhaps  you  do  not  think  starch  worth  making 
such  a  fuss  about.     But  wait  a  moment. 

There  is  more  to  starch  than  you 
ever  dreamed  of.     Really  and  truly,  if 
it  were  not  for  starch  you  would  not 
day,  and  I  would  not, 
nobody  would. 

All  our  lives 
depend  upon 
starch.  So 
when  we  come 
right  down  to 
the  truth,  our 
lives  depend 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.   139 

upon  chlorophyll,  because  that  makes  all  the  starch 
there  is  in  the  world. 

You  do  not  think  our  lives  depend  upon  starch  ? 
Wait  and  see. 

Chlorophyll  makes  starch.  Never  forget  that  as 
long  as  you  live.  Forget  your  own  name  if  you 
want  to,  but  do  not  forget  that  chlorophyll  makes 
starch. 

You  see  starch  is  the  raw  material  of  which 
plants  are  made. 

After  the  chlorophyll  has  made  starch,  the  starch 
is  dissolved,  or  melted  you  would  likely  say,  and  so 
is  carried  all  over  the  plant  in  the  sap.  Some  parts 
of  the  plant  change  the  starch  into  sugar  ;  for  sugar 
is  made  of  the  same  things  as  starch,  only  in  it  the 
carbon,  hydrogen,  and  oxygen  are  put  together  a 
little  differently,  just  as  you  can  make  several  kinds 
of  cake  from  flour,  butter,  sugar,  milk,  and  eggs  by 
stirring  them  together  differently  and  mixing  them 
in  different  proportions. 

You  cannot  make  cake  without  flour,  sugar,  eggs, 
and  milk,  and  usually  butter.  But  if  you  have 
these  ingredients  you  can  make  a  great  many  kinds 
of  cake. 

Starch  is  the  material  of  which  the  plant  makes  a 
large  part  of  its  substance. 


140 


FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 


Some  parts  of  the  plant  that  need  sugar  make  it 
from  the  starch,  and  we  find  more  or  less  sugar  in 
all  plants.  There  is,  as  you  know,  a  great  deal  in 
the  nectar  of  flowers,  but  other  parts  of  the  plant 
need  it  too,  so  sugar  is  a  matter  of  importance  to 
plants  as  well  as  to  people.  But  sugar,  remember, 
is  made  generally  from  starch,  no  matter  in  what 
part  of  the  plant  we  find  it. 

The  sweet  sap  in  the  sugar  maple  is  made  from 
starch;  so  is  the  sweet  juice  of  the  sugar  beet  and 
of  the  sugar  cane.  All  the  sugar  we  use,  except- 
ing that  in  homeopathic  pills,  is  made  from  starch. 
The  sweet  juice  of  fruits,  berries,  apples,  peaches, 
oranges,  contains  sugar,  which  the  plant  has  made 
from  starch.  In  green  fruit  the  starch  has  not 
yet  been  changed  into  sugar,  so  it  is  not 
pleasant  to  the  taste. 

Some  parts  of  the  plant  need 
thick  walls,  like  wood  or   bark, 
and  these  are  made  by  the  proto- 
starch ;  they  are  not  sugar, 
a    very    tough,    firm 
unlike  sugar  that 


plasm  from 
however,  but 
substance  so 


you  wonder  how  it  can  ^^-^^  be  made  of  tlie 
same  materials.  But  it  is, \^  "^^k  for  starch 
is  the  substance  from  which  both  are  made. 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    141 

There  are  other  things  in  the  plant  besides  starch, 
and  there  are  things  which  are  not  made  from 
starch;  for  instance,  there  are  acids  and  minerals  of 
different  kinds  and  there  is  protoplasm,  but  the 
greater  part  of  every  green  plant  is  formed  from 
starch. 

Some  plants  make  more  starch  than  they  need  at 
once,  so  they  store  it  away  for  future  use,  just  as 
people  raise  extra  supplies  of  wheat  and  corn,  and 
store  them  away  until  they  want  them. 

The  potato  plant,  for  instance,  stores  a  large 
quantity  of  starch  in  the  potatoes  underground.  A 
potato  is  nearly  all  starch,  and  the  sweet  potato 
stores  up  sugar  as  well  as  starch  in  its  underground 
parts. 

The  potatoes  have  a  reason  for  this,  and,  if  let 
alone,  would  use  up  the  starch  and  sugar  another 
season ;  but  we  do  not  let  them  alone,  as  you  know. 
We  too  need  starch,  and  so  we  dig  up  the  potatoes 
^and  eat  them  instead  of  leaving  them  for  the  plant. 

A  great  many  plants  store  up  starch  in  their 
seeds  that  the  young  plant  may  have  food  enough 
to  start  growing.  All  our  grains  do  this.  Wheat, 
rye,  oats,  barley,  rice,  corn,  and  all  other  grains  are 
only  the  seeds  of  plants  which  have  been  stored  full 
of  starch.  Peas  and  beans  are  also  starch-filled 


142 


FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 


seeds.  Cabbages  store  food  made  from  starch  in 
their  big  thick  leaves.  Beets  store  sugar  and  other 
starch -food  materials  in  their  thick  roots  ;  so  do  car- 
rots and  parsnips  and  turnips.  Onions  store  it  in 
their  bulb  leaves  underground. 

You  begin  to  see  now  how  important  starch  is 


to  our  lives.  Nearly  all  the  vegetables  and  grains 
and  fruits  we  eat  are  composed  almost  entirely  of 
starch  or  the  materials  of  starch.  Even  meat  is 
made  from  starch,  for  what  do  the  animals  we  kill 
for  meat  live  on  ? 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    143 

Why,  plants  of  course,  and  chiefly  the  starch  they 
find  in  plants. 

So  now  we  are  just  where  we  started,  —  we  see 
we  really  do  owe  our  lives  to  starch,  and  we  owe 
starch  to  chlorophyll,  so  of  course,  we  owe  our  lives 
to  chlorophyll.  I  wonder  if  we  shall  think  of  this 
next  time  we  look  at  the  green  leaves  everywhere 
in  the  fields  and  woods. 

I  wonder  if  these  green  leaves  will  not  look  more 
beautiful  than  ever  when  we  think  of  the  work  they 
are  doing. 


ROOT   CELLS. 


ROOTS  do  their  work  underground  as  a  rule. 
You  might  prefer  not  to  be  a  root,  if  you  had 
your  choice;  you  might  prefer  to  be  a  leaf   or  a 
flower. 

I  have  never  heard  that  the  roots  com- 
plained of  their  work,  however.  For  one 
thing,  it  is  easier.  All  they  have  to  do 
is  to  hold  the  plant  fast,  suck  up  juices 
from  the  earth,  and  in  some  cases  store 
away  food  material,  —  that  is,  if  they  are 
regular,  well-behaved,  everyday,  under- 
ground roots. 

Sometimes,  however,  roots  come  out  of 
the  ground  and  do  all  sorts  of  things,  — 
cling  to  walls  and  hang  in  the  air  and 
perform  in  other  unroot-like  ways ;  but 
these  are  not  what  we  are  talking  about. 
We  are  talking  of  roots,  such  as  those  of  the 
morning-glory  and  nasturtium  and  geranium,  which 
stay  underground  and  behave  themselves. 


144 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    145 

Since  it  is  dark  where  they  live,  they  have  no 
chlorophyll  grains,  and  do  not  have  to  make  starch. 
They  merely  use  up  the  starch  that  comes  to  them 
from  above. 

Since  they  are  not  blown  about  by  the  wind,  they 
do  not  need  complicated,  stiff,  supporting  tissues  like 
tree  trunks.  On  the  whole,  they  are  rather  a  simple 
people.  They  are  made  of  cells,  of  course.  But 
there  are  not  so  many  kinds  of  cells  in  them  as  in 
the  stems  and  leaves. 

They  have  skin  cells,  but  no  pores.  Out  of  their 
skin  cells  grow  their  most  interesting  and  important 
parts.  These  are  called  root  hairs.  They  are  made 
of  cells  lying  next  each  other,  like  other  hairs,  but 
they  do  all  the  sucking  up  of  food  materials  for  the 
whole  root.  These  root  hairs  draw  the  water  and 
other  food  out  of  the  soil  for  the  use  of  the  plant, 
and  the  rest  of  the  root  only  stores  it  up  and  con- 
ducts it  to  the  stem  and  leaves  above  and  anchors 
the  plant  to  the  ground. 

The  root's  work  as  an  anchor  is  important,  as  you 
can  imagine. 

Just  suppose  that  plants  had  no  strong  roots 
twisting  around  stones  and  bits  of  earth  under- 
ground and  holding  them  fast  !  What  a  time  there 
would  be  whenever  the  wind  blew. 


146  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

Even  a  light  breeze  would  be  worse  than  a  cyclone 
at  present,  for  it  would  send  the  wheat  in  the  wheat- 
fields  flying  before  it. 

All  the  plants  would  go  hurry-skurry  wherever 
the  wind  blew  —  excepting  the  morning-glories  and 
others  that  were  twined  about  trellises  or  fences  or 
rocks ;  and  even  they  would  be  blown  all  out  of 
shape. 

And  when  a  strong  wind  came,  if  the  trees  had 
no  roots  to  anchor  them  they  would  go  hurry-skurry 
in  the  direction  in  which  the  wind  blew,  even  if  they 
were  balanced  so  that  they  could  not  fall  over ;  and 
we  should  see  the  forests  sliding  about  the  country 
and  probably  right  on  our  houses,  knocking  them 
down,  so  we  would  not  be  able  to  have  any  houses, 
but  would  have  to  live  in  caves.  It  is  a  very  good 
thing  for  us  that  the  plants  are  held  fast  by  their 
roots. 

Well,  the  root  hairs  do  the  most  important  work 
of  the  plant  after  all.  It  is  they  who  go  poking 
their  noses  through  the  soil,  and  with  their  cells 
draw  up  water  and  potash  and  nitrogen  and  sul- 
phur and  iron  and  many  other  things  which  have 
become  dissolved  in  the  water.  They  are  even  able 
to  dissolve  rocks  and  such  delicacies  for  themselves. 

Now  a  growing  root  tip  is  a  very  delicate  thing. 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    147 

You  could  not  expect  it  to  go.  pushing  its  tender  tip 
through  the  hard  earth  without  some  kind  of  protec- 
tion. And  it  does  not :  it  wears  a  cap.  This  cap 
fits  over  the  tip  of  the  root  and  is  hard.  The  cap 
is  not  alive,  that  is,  the  outside  of  it  is  not.  The 
growing  part  of  the  root  tip  is  just  behind  the  cap. 

The  root  tip  grows  by  adding  on  new  cells  and  so 
pushes  the  root  cap  ahead  of  it.  The  hard  root  cap 
finds  its  way  between  the  particles  of  earth  and  so 
opens  a  channel  for  the  growing  root  tip  behind  it. 

The  cap  wears  off  on  the  outside  as  the  bark  does 
on  a  tree,  and,  like  that,  is  continually  renewed  from 
the  inside  where  the  cells  are  alive. 


Root  cap. 


SKIN   CELLS. 


SKIN  covers  over  and 
protects  what  is  under- 
neath.    It  is  thin  com- 
pared   with    what     it 
covers,  but    it    is    im- 
portant, as  we  discover  when  we  lose 
a  piece  of  our  own  skin.     A  fluid  sub- 
stance or  even  blood  oozes  out,  and 
the  spot  where  the  skin  is  off  is  very 
painful. 

Plants  have  a  skin  too,  and  it  does  for  them 
what  our  skin  does  for  us.     It  is  tough  and  pro- 
l|/'    tects  the  soft  inner  parts  and  keeps  the  sap  from 
oozing  out. 

Skin,  of  course,  is  built  up  of  cells.  These  cells 
generally  lie  close  together,  touching  each  other, 
except  at  certain  spots,  where  there  is  an  opening. 
Skin  cells  are  usually  long  and  wide,  and  their 
outer  walls,  as  you  would  expect,  are  thicker  than 
the  inside  walls.  The  protoplasm  builds  up  hard 
material  on  the  outside  to  protect  the  rest  of  the 

148 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    149 

leaf  or  stem.     Leaves  and  young  stems  and  roots 
and  flower  parts  all  have  skin. 

The  skin  is  alike  in  all  in  a  general  way,  just  as 
all  houses  are  alike  in  a  general  way.  They  all 
have  a  roof,  walls,  partitions,  doors,  and  windows, 
though  these  are  of  different  sizes  and  arranged 
differently  in  different  houses  to  suit  the  needs  of  the 
people  who  live  in  them.  So  with  plants.  The  skin 
cells  are  different  in  size  and  shape  and  thickness 
in  different  plants  to  suit  the  needs  of  the  plants, 
though  in  all  there  is  a  general  resemblance. 

Here  is  a  row  of  skin  cells 
^-SN\    j  \\^J^^-     (a)  w^n  otner  cells  (b)  back 

•=k    ^/^\  ff\     of  them.     See  how  thick  the 


skin  cells  are  on  the  outside 
"x>  (c).  They  are  very  tough  there 
too.  d  is  an  opening  between  two  cells,  and  all  is 
magnified  several  hundred  times. 

Sometimes  there  are  several  layers 
of  skin  cells  where  the  plant  needs  a 
particularly  thick  skin  ;   a  in  the  illustration  is  an 
example  of  such  a  skin. 

But  it  would  not  do  to  have  an  air-tight  skin, 
even  for  a  plant. 

Our  own  skins  are  full  of  holes,  or  pores,  as  you 
know,  to  let  out  the  extra  water  and  other  waste 


150  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR    FRIEND 8. 

materials  in  what  we  call  perspiration.  The  plants 
need  such  an  arrangement  as  much  as  we  do.  So 
in  their  skin  we  find  pores.  You  see  the  plant 
needs  a  great  deal  of  water.  The  water  is  used  in 
making  the  substance  of  the  plant.  It  is  also  used  in 
the  sap  to  carry  food  about  from  place  to  place.  Sap 
contains  a  great  deal  of  water  in  order  that  it  may 
flow  easily.  This  water  cannot  all  be  used  by  the 
plant,  and  when  it  comes  up  from  the  roots  in  the  sap 
a  large  part  of  it  has  to  be  got  rid  of  by  the  leaves. 
If  the  skin  were  solid,  the  water  could  not  escape. 
But  you  know  what  protoplasm  can  do. 

If  the  skin  needs  pores,  it  will  make  them.  And 
this  is  how  it  does  it. 

If  you  peel  off  a  bit  of  skin  from  the  under  side  of 
a  leaf  and  put  it  under  the  microscope,  you  will  see 
something  like  this. 

The  round  forms  are  the  pores.  The  crooked 
lines  between  are  the  edges  of  the  cell  walls,  and 
you  are  looking  at  them  right  through  the 
outer  wall  of  the  skin,  which  is  transparent 
like  glass,  otherwise  you  could  not  see  the 
edges  of  the  partitions. 

Let  us  look  at  these  pores,  or  stomata  as 
we  must  call  them,  if  we  want  to  talk  like 
botanists. 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    151 

One  of  the  stomata  is  called  a  "stoma";  stoma 
comes  from  the  Greek  and  means  a  "  mouth,"  or 
'"opening."  These  little  mouths,  or  stomata,  are 
made  of  two  cells  lying  close  together.  These  cells 
reach  through  the  skin  into  an  open  space  back  of  it. 

There  are  open  spaces  between  many  of  the  inner 
plant  cells,  and  there  is  always  one  behind  a  stoma. 
There  are  very  few  spaces  between  skin  .cells, 
excepting,  of  course,  the  openings  between  the  two 
cells  of  a  stoma.  The  two  cells  which  make  a 
stoma  are  called  "  guard  cells,"  because  they  guard 
the  opening  into  the  plant. 

They  are  shaped,  you  see,  something  like  half- 
moons.  When  the  plant  is  full  of  water  these  half- 
moons  swell  ^f^f^  UP  and  their  edges  are  drawn 
apart  —  so .  /^\$f 

This,  you  see,  makes  an  opening  (x)  into  the  plant. 
This  little  mouth  through  the  skin  opens  into  the 
space  back  of  the  skin,  and  this  space  connects 
with  other  spaces  all  through  the  plant.  Through 
these  stomata  all  parts  of  the  plant  can  communi- 
cate with  the  outer  air.  The  extra  water  and  9ther 
waste  materials  pass  out  through  the  open  stomata 
and  air  and  other  gases  pass  in  and  out. 

Now,  if  the  air  outside  is  very  dry  and  the  earth 
is  dry  so  that  the  roots  are  not  able  to  send  up 


152  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

much   water,  these  wise  little  guard   cells   do  not 
swell  up  and  separate. 

They  are  too  good  gatekeepers  for  that.     They 
straighten   out,   their   edges   meet  —  so  — 
and  the  opening  is  closed. 

Now  the  water  cannot  so  readily  escape  and  the 
plant  will  not  wither  so  soon.  In  dry  climates  the 
stomata  are  often  surrounded  by  hairs  which  pre- 
vent too  rapid  evaporation  ;  these  hairs  are  often 
thick  enough  to  make  the  plant  look  woolly.  In 
fact,  many  plants  have  hairs  upon  those  parts  of  the 
leaves  where  the  stomata  are  found  ;  they  not  only 
prevent  too  rapid  evaporation,  but  also  keep  the  rain 
or  dew  from  getting  into  the  stomata  and  closing 
them  up.  They  hold  off  the  water  so  that  it  cannot 
wet  that  part  of  the  leaf. 

There  are  a  great  many  stomata  on  one  leaf,  — 
on  some  kinds  as  many  as  thousands  to  a  square 
inch. 

Usually,  among  land  plants,  there  are  more  on 
the  under  side  of  the  leaf,  and  in  very  dry  places 
all  are  on  the  under  side.  The  sun  shining  on  the 
upper  side  would  often  cause  too  great  evaporation, 
so  the  stomata  are  found  underneath.  In  very  hot, 
dry  air  there  will  be  a  little  evaporation,  even  when 
the  stomata  are  closed. 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.   153 


But  when  we  come  to  look  at  leaves  that  lie  on 
the  surface  of  the  water,  like  water-lily  leaves,  of 
course  the  stomata  are  all  on  top,  as  that  is  the 
only  part  of  the  leaf  the  air  can  reach. 

Many  water  plants  have  their  stomata  above,  for 
you  see  there  is  no  danger  of  their  water  supply 
running  short. 

It  is  very  important  for  a  plant  to  keep  its  pores 
open  and  it  is  quite  ingenious  in  contriving  ways  to 
do  this.  Perhaps  hairs  are  most  frequently  used. 

They  often  cover  the  under  side  of  the  leaf  where 
the  stomata  are  thickest,  or  are  found  in  lines  along 
the  leaf,  when  the  stomata  are  distributed  in  this1 
way. 

But,  you  say,  rain  cannot  get  to  the  under  side  of 
the  leaf.  No,  but  dew  can.  Dew  wets  the  under 
side  of  the  leaf  quite  as  much  as  the  upper  side, 
for  dew  does  not  fall,  as  some  people  think,  but  is 
deposited  all  over  the  surface  of  a  cool  object  like  a 
leaf,  for  dew  is  nothing  but  the  vapor 
in  the  air  which  is  deposited  in  the  form 
of  water  at  night. 

To  see  better  how  the  stomata 
work,  here  is  a  side  view  of  one 
closed  (a)  and  one  open  (b). 

Stomata,  you  see,  are   the  doors 


154  FLOWERS  AND   THEIR  FRIENDS. 

to  the  plant  through  which  things  pass  in  and  out. 
Not  only  water  goes  out  through  them,  but  also 
other  waste  substances,  such  as  oxygen  and  carbon 
dioxide. 

You  must  not  suppose  because  so  many  things  go 
out  at  the  doors  that  nothing  goes  in ;  for  air  passes 
in  and  also  carbon  dioxide. 

Carbon  dioxide  passes  out  from  the  plant  and  in 
from  the  air  !  That  seems  curious,  but  you  must 
remember  the  plant  has  to  use  its  stomata  for  both 
lungs  and  mouths,  —  lungs  to  breathe  out  impure  air, 
which  contains  carbon  dioxide,  and  mouths  to  take 
in  carbon  dioxide,  which  is  one  of  its  principal  foods. 

Besides  stomata,  plant  skin  has  other  kinds  of 
special  cells.  These  other  cells  form  hairs  or 
prickles  or  scales  or  glands.  The  hairs,  prickles, 
and  scales  form  on  the  outside  of  the  skin,  as  you 
can  see  by  the  illustration. 

On  the  side  of  a  regular  skin  cell  the  protoplasm 

builds  a  small  cell  ;  this  grows  long  and  divides 

and  makes  two ;  these  may  again  divide,  and  so 
on  until  the  plant  has  as  long  a  hair  as  it 
needs.  Sometimes  the  hair  is  made  of  but 
one  long  cell. 

Hairs,  as  we  know,  protect  the  plant  from  too 
great  evaporation  and  from  changes  of  tempera- 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    155 


ture ;  they  also  keep  the  dew  and  rain  from  settling 
in  the  stomata  and  filling  them  up  so  they  cannot 
do  their  work. 

Here  is  a  picture  of  four  stomata, 
growing  about  a  hollow  filled  with  hairs. 
These  hairs  prevent  the  outside  water 
from  running  in  and  wetting  the  stomata. 
Prickles  and  some  kinds  of  hairs  and 
scales  protect  the  outside  of  the  plant 
from  animals.  When  the  animals  bite 
the  plant,  these  things  stick  into  their  mouths  and 
they  are  glad  to  let  it  alone. 

If  you  want  to  be  sure  that  prickles  and  hairs  pro- 
tect the  outside  of  a  plant,  go  take  hold  of  a  nettle ! 
Madam  Nettle  does  not  wish  to  be  taken  hold  of 
nor   eaten  nor  touched  by  cows  or  sheep  or  any- 
thing else. 

skin  has  hairs  on  it  that  sting.  The 
very  sharp  and  they  are  hollow. 
There  is  a  poisonous  juice  inside, 
something  the  protoplasm  has  made; 
and  when  the  sharp  end  of  a  hair  sticks 
into  your  finger,  the  little  turned-up 
end  breaks  off,  and  the  poisonous  juice  gets  into 
the  wound  and  irritates  and  causes  the  finger  to 
swell  a  little. 


So  her 
hairs  are 


156 


FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 


There  is  a  way  to  take  hold  of  a  nettle  so  that  it 
cannot  sting.  The  little  poison-filled  hairs  all  point 
up,  as  you  see  in  the  picture.  So  if  you  stroke  the 
nettle  or  draw  your  hand  over  it  from  root  to  tip, 
it  cannot  hurt  you.  Your  hand  presses  the  hairs 
flat  against  the  stem  and  they  cannot  stick  into  you. 
Sometimes  hairs  branch  and  make  a  thick  net- 
work, like  felt,  over  the  leaf.  They  do  this  in  the 
mullein,  and  here  is  a  picture  of  mullein  hairs  very 
highly  magnified. 

Prickles   and   scales  are  made 
of  cells  as  hairs  are. 

All  parts  of  the  plant  above 
ground  and  sometimes  the  roots 
are  covered  with  skin,  but  only  the 
parts  above  ground  are  covered 
with  hairs  or  prickles.  Some 
plants  are  abundantly  supplied  with  these  protec- 
tions; others  manage  to  get  along  without  them. 

Plants  very  often  have  glands  in  their  skins. 
These  glands  are  merely  cells  which  take  certain 
things  from  the  sap  and  pour  them  out  on  the  out- 
side of  the  plant. 

Glands  secrete  their  fluids  inside  the  skin  cells, 
and  these  fluids  finally  break  through  the  outer  wall 
of  the  skin  cell  and  so  get  to  the  surface,  or  else  they 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    157 

pass  through  stomata  specially  provided  for  them. 
They  sometimes  cover  the  surface  of  the  plant  with 
a  sticky  substance,  as  is  the  case  with  young  birch 
twigs. 

Glands  also  secrete  the  gum  or  resin  which 
covers  up  the  winter  buds  and  keeps  out  the  rain, 
and  which  makes  the  young  leaves  of  the  cherry 
shine  so. 

Some  plants  secrete  wax  which  covers  leaves  or 
stems  or  fruits.  Bayberry  berries  are  covered  with 
white  wax,  of  which  fragrant  candles  can  be  made. 

Bayberry  grows  abundantly  all  along  the  New 
England  coast,  and  friends  of  Thoreau  used  to 
make  these  fragrant  candles  as  Christmas  presents. 
Whenever  Thoreau  went  to  visit  them,  he  insisted 
upon  having  a  bayberry  candle  to  go  to  bed  by. 

The  bloom  on  cabbage  leaves  and  on  plums  and 
other  fruits  is  made  of  tiny  scales  of  wax. 

Wax  is  a  very 
good  substance  to 
keep  the  plant  dry. 
You  may  be  sure  the 
plant  knows  this  and 
often  uses  it  about 
the  stomata.  You 
see,  the  object  is  to 


158  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

allow  water  to  pass  freely  out  of  the  stomata  by 
evaporation,  but  not,  as  a  rule,  to  pass  into  them. 
So  the  clever  plants  often  have  wax  instead  of  hairs 
as  a  protection  to  the  stomata.  It  would  not  do  at 
all  to  let  the  stomata  get  closed  up,  so  they  are 
always  protected  in  some  way.  Sometimes  little 
projections  grow  out  of  the  skin,  close  to  the 
stomata.  The  raindrops  fall  upon  these  little  knobs 
and  stay  there,  instead  of  settling  down  into  the 
stomata.  You  see,  the  pegs  are  very  small,  and 
when  the  rain  falls  on  them  there  is  a  layer  of  air 
below  them  which  the  water  cannot  displace,  and 
which  prevents  it  from  going  any  farther. 

If  you  want  to  know  just  where  the  stomata  are 
situated  in  a  leaf,  plunge  it  in  water,  then  shake 
the  drops  off  and  notice  what  part  of  the  leaf  has 
not  been  wet.  Wherever  the  leaf  is  dry,  there  are 
the  stomata.  In  many  plants,  as,  for  instance,  the 
jewelweed,  it  is  quite  impossible  to  wet  the  leaf. 
Soak  it  in  water  for  an  hour,  and  when  you  take 
it  out  it  is  dry !  The  parts  that  cannot  be  wet 
usually  have  a  silvery,  glistening  appearance.  Put 
the  leaf  in  water  and  notice  where  it  glistens;  there 
are  the  stomata,  —  sometimes  all  over  the  under 
side  of  the  leaf,  sometimes  in  lines  or  patches,  some- 
times on  both  sides  of  the  leaf. 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    159 

Wax,  gum,  and  resin  are  not  the  only  things 
plant  glands  secrete.  There  are  the  glands  in  the 
flower  cups  that  secrete  nectar.  In  some  plants  this 
breaks  through  the  delicate  plant  skin  and  runs 
into  and  fills  up  the  little  hollows  or  horns  we  call 
nectaries.  In  others  the  nectar  is  provided  with 
stomata  by  means  of  which  it  can  escape  from  the 
interior  of  the  plant. 

You  may  be  surprised  to  learn  that  the  flower 
is  not  the  only  part  of  the  plant  that  can  secrete 
nectar! 

In  some  plants  the  stipules  do  it,  and  in  some 
even  the  stems. 

This  is  not  to  call  visitors  to  the  flowers,  but  perhaps 
to  keep  them  away.  Where  ants  trouble  the  flowers, 
certain  kinds  have  invented  this  very  clever  way  of 
stopping  the  unwelcome  visitors.  They  do  not  want 
the  ants  to  take  the  honey  from  the  flowers,  so  they 
secrete  honey  on  the  leaves  or  stems,  and  the  ants 
take  that  instead  of  traveling  on  to  the  flowers. 

Of  course  each  living  skin  cell  contains  proto- 
plasm. The  protoplasm  lies  in  a  thin  layer  against 
the  walls  and  builds,  builds,  builds,  until  the  skin  is 
thick  enough. 

When  a  good  thick  wall  has  been  built,  the  proto- 
plasm passes  out  through  tiny  openings  in  the  inner 


160  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR  FRIENDS. 

wall  into  the  inside  cells,  where  it  goes  to  work 
doing  something  else.  The  skin  cells  are  then 
empty  of  protoplasm;  they  are  only  filled  with 
air,  and  we  say  they  are  dead  cells.  Their  hard 
walls  are  a  good  protection  to  the  plant.  In  stems 
there  is  often  a  layer  of  thick  cells  behind  the  skin 
cells  which  also  protects.  These  are  called  cork  cells. 

All  very  young  plants  have  their  stems  covered 
with  living  skin. 

Older  plants,  particularly  woody  ones,  have  their 
stems  covered  with  the  tough,  dead  skin.  And 
trees  have  finally  a  thick  layer  of  dead  cork  cells.  In 
tree  trunks  the  skin  cells  have  disappeared  entirely. 
The  skin  protected  the  young  shoot ;  then  its  empty 
cells  finally  peeled  off,  as  the  cork  cells  formed 
underneath  and  made  a  thick  bark.  The  bark  then 
does  the  work  of  the  skin.  It  protects  the  stem. 
It  becomes  very  thick  sometimes,  as  layers  are  con- 
stantly added  beneath.  The  outside  of  the  bark 
keeps  peeling  and  scaling*  off. 

Of  course  there  are  no  stomata  in  bark.  We  find 
them  only  in  the  living  skin.  Bark  does  not  need 
stomata,  as  it  does  not  regulate  the  water  supply. 
The  young  green  parts  of  the  plant  do  that  by 
means  of  their  covering  of  living  skin.  Living  skin 
is  usually  transparent  like  glass. 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    161 

It  is  tough  and  yet  transparent.  You  see,  the 
light  must  get  through  it  to  the  cells  which  lie 
behind  it. 

There  is  usually  no  green  color  in  skin.  Some- 
times there  are  other  coloring  materials,  though  not 
as  a  rule. 

The  living  skin  covers  the  leaf  or  stem  or  other 
part  of  the  plant  like  a  window  of  tough  glass. 
Even  where  the  skin  is  several  cells  thick,  the  light 
can  pass  through,  just  as  it  can  through  thick  glass. 


TUBE   CELLS. 


£E3 

c 

^ 


B 


THE  top  of  a  tree  is  a  long  way  from  the 
roots.  Yet  the  leaves  must  have  food  from 
the  roots,  and  the  roots  must  have  food  from 
the  leaves. 

It  is  not   an   easy  matter  to  move  all  this 
food  material  up  and  down,  you  may  be 
sure. 

I  wonder  how  you  would  manage  it  ? 

Why,  you  say,  if  I  had  to  raise  sap  from 
under  the  ground  to  the  top  of  the  tree,  I 
should  certainly  build  some  pipes  and  have 
a  pump  at  the  top. 

That  is  the  way  the  plant  has  decided. 
So  pipes  there  are,  plenty  of  them,  —  pipes 
or  tubes  of  many  sizes  and  shapes. 

You  know  how  cells  grow,  lying  next 
each  other.  Well,  tube  cells  are  long  and 
contain  protoplasm  in  the  beginning.  They  lie 
end  to  end.  But,  you  see,  it  would  not  be  very 
easy  for  the  sap  to  pass  through  millions  of  cell 
walls  on  its  way  up. 

162 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    163 

So  when  the  protoplasm  has  built  a  row  of  cells 
with  good  thick  walls,  it  passes  out  through  thin 
places  or  openings  it  has  left  in  the  walls.  The 
end  partitions  between  the  tube  cells  are  thin  and 
break  away,  and  lo  and  behold!  we  have  a  long, 
strong  tube  with  nothing  in  it  but  air.  Up  this 
tube  the  sap  creeps  or  down  it  the  sap  runs.  A 
great  many  of  these  tubes,  which  are  as  fine  as 
hairs  or  much  finer  in  some  cases,  are  needed  in  a 
plant.  They  run  all  through  the  stems  and  out 
into  the  leaves.  They  are  collected  into  bundles, 
and  form  part  of  the  veins  and  the  framework  of 
leaves.  I  do  not  know  what  the  plant  would  do 
without  them. 

But  what  makes  the  sap  run  up  the  tubes  ? 

Now  you  are  asking  questions!  It  took  a  long 
time  for  people  to  find  that  out,  for  there  is  more 
than  one  reason  why  the  sap  runs  up. 

For  one  thing,  the  root  cells  keep  drawing  in 
water  and  other  things,  and  the  fluid  already  in  is 
pushed  up  by  that  behind ;  so  there  is  a  sort  of  pump 
at  the  bottom  of  the  plant,  you  see,  —  a  force  pump. 
The  sun  shining  on  the  leaves  and  stems  evaporates 
the  water  above,  and  the  water  below  then  easily 
takes  its  place ;  so  there  is  a  sort  of  suction  pump 
at  the  top. 


164  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

Then  the  tubes  are  so  very  fine  that  the  fluid  in 
them  tends  to  move  up,  just  as  water  will  soak  up 
into  a  towel  if  the  fringe  happens  to  get  into  the 
water ;  for  you  know  that  if  you  hang  a  towel  so 
that  the  fringe  dips  into  a  basin  of  water,  after 
awhile  the  whole  towel  will  be  wet,  as  a  result  of 
what  we  call  capillary  attraction.  For  all  these 
reasons  the  sap  creeps  up  the  stems  through  the 
tubes  the  cells  have  made. 

Every  plant  has  these  tubes,  from  the  tiniest  weed 
in  the  garden  to  the  tallest  forest  tree.  Although 
so  small,  they  are  often  very  prettily  marked  by 
lines  and  dots. 


STRENGTHENING   CELLS. 


PLANTS  need  something  more  than  cells  of  work- 
ing protoplasm  and  something  more  than  tubes,  just 
as  we  need  more  than  flesh  and  blood  vessels.  /\ 

We  would  be  in  a  sad  plight  if  we  had  no  bones 
to  keep  us  in  place,  and  plants  would  be  in  a  sad 
plight  if  they  had  no  —  well,  not  exactly  hones,  but 
something  to  serve  the  same  purpose. 

Think  of  the  weight  a  tree  has  to  bear.  You 
could  not  begin  to  lift  the  crown  of  a  large  tree,  yet 
the  tree  trunk  has  to  hold  it  up  in  the  air.  Not 
only  that,  —  it  has  to  hold  on  to  it  when  the  wind 
blows,  which  is  a  much  harder  task.  Even  small 
bushes  and  tender  garden  plants  have  quite  a  weight 
to  bear  and  quite  a  task  to  keep  their  leaves  and 
stems  from  being  blown  away.  They  could  never 
hold  on  to  them  if  it  were  not  for  the  wood  and 
other  tough  cells  they  have, — never  in  the  world. 

These  wood  cells  and  other  tough  cells  are  made 
by  protoplasm,  of  course. 

The  protoplasm  builds  them  very  much  as  it  does 
the  tube  cells,  long  and  slender,  as  you  see  in  the 


165 


166  FLOWERS  AND   THEIR   FRIENDS. 

picture  at  the  beginning  of  the  chapter,  and  then 
when  the  hard,  tough  walls  are  all  done,  the  proto- 
plasm slips  out  and  leaves  the  strong  framework  of 
tough  fibres  to  do  its  duty.  This  framework  is  not 
only  strong,  it  is  elastic,  so  it  can  bend  easily.  If 
it  were  not,  the  first  strong  wind  or  the  first  thing 
that  happened  to  bend  the  plant  would  snap  it  off 
short. 

You  cannot  break  wood  easily,  and,  if  you  do 
succeed,  it  always  bends  more  or  less  first.  Some 
wood  bends  more  easily  than  others,  as  you  know. 
A  willow  twig  can  be  tied  into  a  knot,  it  bends 
so  easily. 

Nearly  all  land  plants  have  these  stiffening  cells. 
They  run  out  of  the  stems  down  into  the  leaves  and 
help  make  their  framework  of  "  veins."  The  tubes 
and  the  strengthening  fibres  run  along  in  bundles 
side  by  side.  You  see  this  saves  space.  If  the  tubes 
and  strengthening  fibres  each  took  a  different  road, 
that  would  not  leave  much  space  for  the  chlorophyll 
and  other  working  cells.  But  all  the  tubes  and 
fibres  are  closely  packed  together  and  run  length- 
wise, through  the  stem.  All  around  these  long 
fibres  are  placed  the  other  cells  which  are  not  long 
and  do  not  form  tubes  or  fibres.  Most  of  those 
other  cells  in  the  leaf  contain  chlorophyll.  They 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    167 

contain  protoplasm,  and  do  the  work  of  transform- 
ing food  materials  into  plant  material. 


WE  AND   THE   PLANT   PEOPLE. 


WE  live  and  the  plants  live.  Proba- 
bly neither  we  nor  the  plants  spend 
much  time  thinking  about  what  we 
owe  to  each  other. 

The  plants  are  excusable  for  this,  for  they 
are  not  great  thinkers,  at  least  so  far  as  we 
know. 

But  we  owe  so  much  to  them,  we  ought 
to  stop  and  think  about  it  once  in  a  while. 
We  are  indebted  to  them  not  only  for  the 
food  we  eat,  but  for  the  air  we 
breathe. 

We  know  about  chlorophyll  and  the 
starch  it  makes,  and  how  this  starch  is 
stored  up  in  potatoes  and  wheat  and  corn 
and  rice  and  all  sorts  of  food  grains  and 
vegetables. 

We  know,  too,  how  the  roots  suck  up 
substances  from  the  earth  which  we  need 
in  our  bodies,  and  how  they  are  stored 
away  with  the  starch  or  sometimes  by 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    1G9 

themselves.  We  know,  in  short,  how  all  the  food 
we  eat  is  made  first  or  last  by  the  plants.  Not  only 
do  we  owe  our  food  to  the  plants,  but  all  animals  do. 

You  see,  animal  cells  are  not  able  to  take  carbon 
dioxide  and  water  and  ammonia  and  other  gases 
and  minerals  and  work  them  up  into  living  cells. 

The  plants  have  to  do  this  for  them ;  and  then 
the  animals  eat  the  plants,  for  animal  cells  are  able 
to  work  starch  and  sugar  and  plant  protoplasm  over 
into  animal  protoplasm,  which  can  build  all  sorts  of 
animal  cells.  So  all  the  animals  in  the  world  get 
their  food  from  the  plant  world.  If  the  plants  were 
to  stop  living,  all  the  animals  in  the  world  would 
soon  starve  to  death.  The  word  "animals,"  you 
know,  means  every  living  thing  that  is  not  a  plant; 
in  this  sense  flies  and  bees  and  oysters  and  cater- 
pillars are  animals  as  well  as  dogs  and  cats  and 
such  large  creatures.  Last  of  all,  we  ourselves  are 
animals. 

So  the  animal  world  would  be  in  a  sad  predicament 
if  anything  should  happen  to  the  plants. 

But  there  is  mtire  to  thank  the  plants  for  than 
food.  That  is  a  pretty  large  item  certainly;  but 
what  do  you  think  of  having  to  thank  them  for  the 
air  we  breathe  as  well  ?  Yet  this  we  shall  have  to 
do  if  we  begin  thanking  them  at  all. 


170  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR    FRIENDS. 

You  know  about  oxygen,  of  course.  It  is  one 
of  the  gases  that  make  up  the  air;  and  I  may  as 
well  remind  you  that  air  is  composed  principally  of 
oxygen'  and  nitrogen  gases,  —  about  four  times  as 
much  nitrogen  as  oxygen,  but  the  oxygen  is  the 
most  important  to  us.  We  do  not  use  the  nitrogen 
in  the  air  at  all  probably.  It  serves  the  purpose  of 
diluting  the  oxygen,  which  would  be  too  strong  for 
us  if  it  were  not  mixed  with  nitrogen.  But  what 
we  do  use  is  the  oxygen. 

That  goes  into  our  lungs,  and  some  of  it  does  not 
come  out  again.  It  passes  into  the  lung  cells  and 
from  them  into  the  blood,  and  is  carried  by  it  all 
over  our  bodies  to  all  the  millions  of  cells. 

We  need  a  great  deal  of  oxygen,  and  if  the  supply 
should  be  cut  short  we  would  die. 

All  animals  need  oxygen ;  even  the  worms  in  the 
ground  and  the  fishes  and  oysters  in  the  water  must 
have.it.  So  great  quantities  are  being  used  up  all 
the  time. 

Now,  you  know,  when  the  plants  pull  carbon 
dioxide  to  pieces,  they  keep  the  carbon  and  return 
the  oxygen  to  the  air.  In  this  way  we  get  it  to 
breathe. 

But  there  is  more  than  this  to  the  matter  in  hand. 
We  are  all  the  time  breathing  out  carbon  dioxide  as 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    171 


an  impurity;  so  are  all  the  millions  upon  millions  of 
animals  in  the  world. 

The  air  might  in  time  contain  enough  carbon 
dioxide  to  kill  us  if  there  were  not  some  way  of 
getting  rid  of  it.  You  know  what  that  way  is. 

The  plants  use  it  up.  So  by  giving  oxygen  into 
the  air  and  taking  out  carbon  dioxide,  the  plants 
keep  the  air  fit  for  us  and  all  animals  to  breathe. 

But  there  is  more  than  this  we  have  to 
thank  them  for. 

They  shade  the  earth  and   regulate 
the  rainfall  and  the  water  supply. 

Where  forests  grow  there  are 
always  streams  of  water,  and  the 
large  water  courses  are  kept  full 
the  year  round. 

The  Mississippi  Kiver  de- 
pends upon  the  far-away  forests 
for  its  broad  stream. 

The  spreading  crowns  of  the  trees  shade  the  earth 
and  prevent  the  water  which  falls  as  rain  or  dew 
from  evaporating  rapidly.  It  collects  into  streams 
and  flows  through  the  land,  keeping  the  earth  fresh 
and  beautiful. 

More  than  this, —  large  forests  cause  the  rain  to 
fall  and  the  dew  to  collect.  Their  leaves  condense 


172  FLOWERS  AND   THEIR   FRIENDS. 

the  moisture  in  the  air  and  cause  it  to  fall  as  rain  or 
be  deposited  as  dew. 

When  people  recklessly  cut  down  the  forests  in 
a  country,  the  water  courses  dry  up,  and  even  the 
largest  rivers  are  affected. 

When  the  spring  rains  fall  over  a  country  whose 
trees  have  been  cut  away,  the  water  rushes  down 
the  little  streams  all  at  once  and  causes  a  terrific 
flood  in  the  large  rivers.  It  soon  drains  away  ;  then 
the  rivers  fall  lower  and  lower  until  they  nearly  dry 
up.  This  state  of  affairs  is  a  great  calamity,  because 
the  people  can  no  longer  raise  crops  on  the  land 
near  where  the  old  forests  stood,  for  it  is  parched 
and  dry  months  at  a  time. 

Moreover,  boats  laden  with  coal  and  grain  and  all 
sorts  of  things  can  no  longer  pass  up  and  down  the 
rivers,  because  the  water  is  too  low. 

People  ought  to  think  of  these  things  and  not 
destroy  too  much  forest  land.  After  awhile  we 
shall  have  to  go  to  work  and  plant  trees  instead  of 
cutting  them  down  or  burning  them ;  but  it  takes  a 
long  time  for  trees  to  grow,  and  a  wiser  way  would 
be  for  us  to  take  care  of  those  we  have. 

You  have  heard  a  great  deal  about  plants  eating 
and  the  good  they  do  us  by  eating  the  carbon  dioxide 
in  the  air.  They  take  this  in  through  their  leaves, 


STOltJES  ABOUT  ALL  SOJSTS  OF  TH1SGS.   173 

and  you  remember  they  take  in  all  their  other 
food  materials — water,  nitrogen  compounds,  sodium, 
potassium,  magnesium,  and  many  other  substances 
—  through  their  roots. 

But  they  do  more  than  eat ;  they  also  breathe. 

They  breathe  everywhere  over  the  surface  of  their 
bodies  where  there  are  stomata  or  where  the  skin  is 
not  too  thick  for  the  air  to  penetrate  it. 

And  I  must  tell  you  they  breathe  just  as  we  do, — 
that  is,  they  take  in  air,  use  the  oxygen,  and  give  off 
the  carbon  dioxide. 

It  seems  rather  inconsistent  of  them  to  take  in 
carbon  dioxide  as  food  and  throw  it  off  as  a  waste 
at  the  same  time,  but  that  does  not  trouble  them; 
they  do  not  care  whether  they  are  consistent  or 
not.  And  it  is  true  they  take  in  carbon  dioxide 
and  give  off  oxygen,  and  take  hi  oxygen  (in  the 
air)  and  give  off  carbon  dioxide,  in  one  breath  as  it 
were. 

You  see,  it  is  different  parts  of  protoplasm  at 
work  that  does  this;  one  part  —  that  in  the  chloro- 
phyll bodies  —  is  attracting  carbon  dioxide,  breaking 
it  up,  and  casting  out  oxygen.  Other  protoplasm 
in  the  cells  outside  the  chlorophyll  bodies  attracts 
and  uses  the  oxygen,  while  the  carbon  dioxide  comes 
to  the  stomata  from  different  parts  of  the  plant  as  a 


174  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

waste  material,  just  as  it  comes  to  the  cells  of  our 
lungs  to  be  cast  out. 

So  plants,  by  breathing,  make  the  air  a  little 
impure,  but  they  destroy  or  break  up  so  much  more 
carbon  dioxide  than  they  make  that  on  the  whole 
they  act  as  powerful  purifiers  of  the  air. 

When  we  think  of  the  great  forests  of  the  tropics, 
all  overgrown  with  luxuriant  vegetation,  we  may 
remember  that  those  tangles  of  vines  and  trees  and 
strange  growths  are  our  friends  no  less  than  the 
grass  and  bushes  in  our  dooryard. 

For  there  is  a  carrier  always  at  work  bringing  the 
pure  air  to  us  and  carrying  away  the  impure  air 
which  we  create.  This  carrier  is  the  air  currents. 
The  great  winds  sweep  about  the  earth,  bearing  the 
oxygen  from  the  forests  to  the  crowded  cities,  and 
sweeping  away  the  carbon  dioxide  from  the  cities  to 
the  fields  and  woods.  The  winds,  too,  stir  up  the 
water  where  the  water  plants  and  fishes  live,  and  help 
keep  it  full  of  air  for  the  things  in  it  to  breathe ;  the 
tides  and  currents  help,  so  as  far  down  in  the  water 
as  there  are  living  things,  you  may  be  sure  there  is 
air  for  them  to  breathe.  There  wrould  not  be  air 
enough  for  you,  because  you  need  so  much ;  but  for 
them  there  is  plenty. 

Swirling  around  the  earth  go  the  winds,  carrying 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    175 

the  oxygen  to  the  people  and  the  carbon  dioxide 
to  the  plants,  for  the  plants  are  as  glad  to  get  the 
carbon  dioxide  we  breathe  out  as  we  are  to  get  the 
oxygen  they  give  off. 

And  we  are  glad,  when  we  come  to  think  about  it, 
that  we  are  able  to  give  them  something  in  return 
for  all  they  give  to  us. 

You  see,  we  need  each  other, — plants  and  people, 
and  the  winds  are  friends  to  us  both. 


WHAT   ARE   THE   FLOWERS   MADE   OF? 


I  THINK  flowers  are  "  made  of  sugar  and  spice  and 
everything  nice."  At  least,  if  it  is  not 
that,  it  is  something  very  like  it,  as  I 
have  good  reason  to  believe. 

What  flowers  and  all  other  parts  of  the 
plant  are  made   of   depends  upon  proto- 
plasm ;  and  if  protoplasm  can  make  sugar 
and  spice  and  build  up  flowers  that  way, 
we  should  like  to  know  it. 

We  do  know  about  sugar  and  how 
the  little  green  chlorophyll  people  run 
their  starch  factories  in  all  the  green 
parts  of  the  plant, — under  the  skin  of 
stems  sometimes  as  well  as  of  leaves, 
for  wherever  a  stem  is  green,  we  may 
be  sure  chlorophyll  is  at  work  making  starch 
in  it.     And  we  know  how  the  protoplasm  in 
the    different    cells    changes    the    starch    into 
sugar. 

We  know,  too,  how  wood  and  other  tough 
substances  are  made  of  starch. 


176 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    177 

But  there  is  something  else  in  plants  as  important 
as  starch  and  very  different,  —  the  protoplasm. 
Protoplasm  itself  is  not  made  entirely  of  starch; 
it  requires  materials  not  found  in  starch. 

These  materials  are  nitrogen,  sulphur,  and  phos- 
phorus. 

Nitrogen  is  the  most  important,  and  this  the  plant 
gets  chiefly  through  the  roots. 

Nitrogen  is  found  in  the  earth  combined  with 
hydrogen  and  other  substances.  The  protoplasm 
tears  to  pieces  these  nitrogenous  substances  which 
the  roots  suck  up,  and  so  enables  the  plant  to  take 
the  nitrogen. 

The  other  two  substances  which  the  protoplasm 
needs,  sulphur  and  phosphorus,  the  plant  gets  partly 
from  the  air  and  partly  from  the  earth. 

Sulphuric  acid  exists  in  very  small  quantities  in 
the  air  and  goes  in  through  the  stomata,  attracted, 
no  doubt,  by  the  protoplasm  inside.  But  other  sul- 
phurous and  phosphorous  compounds  are  taken  up 
by  the  roots. 

So  we  see  protoplasm  is  complicated.  It  contains 
carbon,  hydrogen,  oxygen,  nitrogen,  sulphur,  and 
phosphorus  united  in  a  very  complicated  way. 

Although  protoplasm  itself  is  made  only  of  carbon, 
hydrogen,  oxygen,  nitrogen,  sulphur,  and  phosphorus, 


178  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

it  can  make  use  of  a  great  many  other  things. 
When  the  protoplasm  of  certain  cells  wants  to  build 
hard,  tough  walls,  it  uses  potash  and  soda  or  even 
silica,  which  you  know  glass  is  made  of.  Just  draw 
a  blade  of  sedge  grass  through  your  fingers  if  you 
want  to  feel  the  silica  in  it.  You  will  probably  cut 
your  fingers,  but  that  will  help  make  you  remember 
about  silica.  Then  the  protoplasm  uses  iron  to  color 
the  petals  and  other  parts  of  the  plant.  It  uses 
magnesia,  too,  and  salt  and  lime  and  a  number  of 
other  materials  for  building  walls  or  making  dyes  or 
something  else. 

Every  material  in  our  own  bodies  is  found  in 
plants,  and  sometimes  the  plants  have  materials  that 
we  do  not  have. 

Of  course  materials  are  put  together  differently  in 
plants  from  what  they  are  in  us.  When  Mother 
Nature  combines  her  carbon,  hydrogen,  oxygen,  ni- 
trogen, sulphur,  phosphorus,  magnesia,  iron,  and  all 
the  other  things  to  make  a  plant,  she  does  not  go  to 
work  as  she  would  if  she  were  going  to  make  an 
animal. 

Just  what  the  difference  is  it  would  be  difficult 
to  tell,  but  there  is  a  difference. 

Plants  contain  a  good  deal  of  sugar  as  a  rule,  and 
if  you  remember  cloves  you  will  admit  that  at  least 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    179 

some  flowers  are  made  of  spice,  for  cloves  are  the 
dried  flower  buds  of  the  clove  tree. 

Cinnamon  is  the  bark  of  a  plant,  and  if  you  are 
acquainted  with  orange  trees  you  will  be  willing  to 
say  they  are  "made  of  sugar  and  spice  and  every- 
thing nice,"  for  the  whole  tree,  wood,  bark,  stems, 
leaves,  flowers,  and  fruit,  is  fragrant  and  spicy. 

Oil  is  another  common  substance  in  plants,  and  it 
is  made  from  the  materials  of  starch  which,  as  we 
know,  are  carbon,  hydrogen,  and  oxygen ;  cotton-seed 
oil,  olive  oil,  and  castor  oil  we  are  all  familiar  with. 

All  nuts  contain  a  great  deal  of  oil,  and  the  skin 
of  a  fresh-picked  orange  is  so  full  of  it  that  it  runs 
down  our  fingers  when  we  cut  the  orange. 

All  the  things  in  a  plant  —  starch,  sugar,  oils, 
spices,  wood,  bark  —  everything  is  made  by  the  won- 
derful protoplasm  in  the  cells. 

Starch  and  the  food  taken  up  by  the  roots  pass 
through  all  parts  of  the  plant  by  the  sap  tubes,  and  as 
the  sap  goes  along,  each  living  cell  draws  into  itself 
the  substances  from  the  sap  that  it  needs,  and  these 
it  combines  into  the  things  it  wants  to  make.  Some 
of  the  cells  in  an  orange  skin,  for  instance,  attract 
out  of  the  sap  the  materials  to  make  the  fragrant, 
stinging  oil  that  fills  the  fresh  skin,  while  other  cells 
attract  the  materials  to  build  the  white  cottony  cov- 


180  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

ering  inside  the  outer  skin,  and  so  the  cells  in  each 
part  of  the  plant  take  out  what  they  need  to  build 
with. 


WHAT    BECOMES   OF   THE   FLOWERS? 


EARLY  in  the  spring  the  snowdrops  and  crocuses 
peep  out,  and  then  they  go  away. 

We  do  not  think  much  about  it,  for  other  flowers 
have  come  in  their  places. 

Spring  beauties  and  bloodroots  shine  in  the  woods, 
and  then  they  go  away.  But  the  mandrakes  have 
come  with  their  umbrella  leaves,  and  then  the  colum- 
bines and  roses  ask  for  a  welcome. 

After  awhile  we  can  find  no  more  mandrakes  and 
columbines,  only  yellow  apples  and  brown  seed -pods. 
Jack-in-the-Pulpit  jumps    up   quite  early  in  the 
summer,  and   then  we   cannot   find    him, 
only  in  the  late  summer  we 
sometimes  come  across  little 
clusters  of  bright  red  berries 
lying  on  the 
ground. 

We  would 
scarcely  sus- 
pect them  of 
having  any 


182  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

relation  to  Jack,  yet  they  are  his  berries.  But  what 
has  become  of  Jack? 

In  the  autumn  the  rose  leaves  fall  off,  and  there  is 
left  only  red  stems  and  red  berries. 

The  morning-glory  vine  wilts  and  turns  black  at 
the  first  frost ;  it  sinks  to  the  ground  and  we  see  it 
no  more,  or  else  its  stems  linger  brown  and  hard  for 
a  time,  but  in  the  end  it  all  disappears.  What  has 
become  of  it? 

And  the  nasturtiums  —  what  a  wreck  the  frost 
makes  of  them !  The  leaves  are  wilted  and  black  ; 
the  stems,  too,  are  soft  and  lie  flat  on  the  ground. 

Why,  you  say,  the  frost  has  killed  them.  But 
that  does  not  at  all  tell  what  has  become  of  them. 
Besides,  the  frost  did  not  kill  the  snowdrops  and 
crocuses  and  blood  roots  and  spring  beauties  nor 
Jack-in-the-Pulpit  nor  the  umbrella  leaves  of  the 
mandrakes.  Yet  they  are  all  gone.  All  we  can 
find  of  Jack  and  the  mandrakes  are  red  berries  and 
yellow  apples.  Not  a  sign  of  the  snowdrops  or 
spring  beauties  or  crocuses  is  left. 

If  you  will  just  step  down  with  me  under  the 
earth  a  few  inches  I  will  show  you  something. 

Make  believe  }TOU  are  a  gnome  or  a  fairy  and  can 
see  as  well  in  the  dark  earth  as  anywhere  else  and 
come  along.  Now  look  about. 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    183 


Did  you  ever  dreain  of  anything  so  cunning  in 
all  your  life?  Everywhere  and  everywhere  old 
mother  earth  is  packed  full  of  little  white  and 
brown  bulbs. 

There  they  are  as  snug  as  peas  in  a 
pod,  thousands  of  them,  in  every  direc- 
tion as  far  as  you  can  see. 

And  besides  these  bulbs,  there  are 
thick,  fleshy  root  stems,  red  and  brown 
and  yellow,  everywhere  and  everywhere. 
Do  you  want  to  know  who  they  are? 

They  are  our  little  friends  of  the  early 
summer,  —  snowdrops  and  crocuses  and  spring  beau- 
ties and  dogtooth  violets ;  mandrakes,  too,  and  Jack- 
in-the-Pulpit. 

These  bulbs  and  thick  roots  are  full  of  plant  food ; 
and  this  is  where  the  plant  has  gone  to.  It  has 
curled  up,  so  to  speak,  in  these  bulbs  and  roots  and 
gone  to  sleep  till  next  spring.  Then  it  will  wake 
up.  It  will  hardly  wait  for  the  snow  to  go  off  before 
it  pushes  out  a  bud.  The  snowdrop  does  not  wait, 
but  sometimes  blossoms  right  under  the  snow.  In  a 
few  days  the  woods  that  looked  so  dead  and  bare  are 
as  gay  as  you  please.  That  is  because  the  plants 
sleeping  in  the  bulbs  and  thick  underground  stems 
have  waked  up.  They  have  eaten  the  rich  food 


184  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

stored  up  there  and  have  grown  like  magic.  Up  into 
the  sunshine  they  spring ;  they  wave  sweet  flowers ; 
they  call  the  little  insects  that  have  ventured  out  to 
come  and  taste  their  nectar  and  bring  them  pollen. 

Their  leaves  are  green  and  delicate,  but  they  work 
hard,  for  the  plants  have  used  up  the  food  in  the 
bulbs  or  in  the  thick  underground  stems,  and  the 
leaves  and  roots  must  make  new  bulb  material  or 
store  away  more  food  in  the  thick  underground  parts. 

It  is  spring,  and  the  air  is  moist  and  warm.  It 
rains  often,  and  the  plants  have  all  the  water  they 
need. 

What  fun  it  must  be  to  come  out  in  the  world! 
What  joy  to  unfold  bright  flowers  in  the  shadowy 
woods!  They  dance  on  their  stems  and  ripen  their 
seeds ;  before  the  slow  roses  have  thought  of  opening 
their  eyes,  the  bulb  people  and  the  underground-stem 
people  have  done  all  their  work  of  growing.  The 
seeds  are  ripe  and  ready  to  be  scattered ;  new  bulbs 
are  packed  full  of  plant  food,  and  fresh  food  is 
stored  in  the  thick  underground  stems.  The  bulb 
people  and  the  underground-stem  people  have  had  a 
good  time. 

They  were  up  early  in  the  summer  and  saw  the 
sweet,  fresh  world ;  their  leaves  worked  hard,  and 
their  work  is  all  done  now. 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SOIiTS  OF  THINGS.    185 


They  are  tired  and  want  to  sleep.  They  fear  the 
heat  and  dryness  of  the  summer.  They  do  not  want 
to  be  crowded  by  the  other  plants  that  are  beginning 
to  look  out  everywhere. 

"  We  will  go  to  sleep  and  let  the  other  plants  have 
our  places ;  we  have  had  our  share  of  the  air  and 
the  water  and  the  dear  sunshine/'  they  seem  to  say. 
"  We  have  caught  the  sunbeams  and  stored  them 
away  in  our  bulbs  and  roots,  and  we  will  now  rest." 

So  they  go  to  sleep.      They  open  the  channels 
from  the  leaves  to  the  bulbs  and  the  underground 
stems,  and  then    all  the  living  part  of  the  leaves 
passes  quickly  down  into  the  part  that  lies  under- 
ground.   There  is  only  left  the  hard  frame- 
work of  the  leaves.     This  is  not  alive ; 
it  never  was  alive.     The    living  part  of 
the  leaf  built  it  for  a  house  to  live  and 
do  its  work  in ;  now  the  house  is  empty : 
the  living  part  has  run   down   into   the 
bulb  or  the  underground  stem. 
The  part  of  the  leaf  that  is  left 
soon  falls  to  pieces,  as  any  old 


186 


FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 


abandoned  house  will  do.  It  falls  on  the. ground; 
the  rain  soaks  it,  and  it  crumbles  apart.  It  changes 
into  food  for  other  plants.  It  is  not  lost ;  it  is  taken 

/up   by  other  plants  and  again  built   into 
good  plant  material. 

/    l^  So   it  is  with  the   seed-pods;  when  the 

seeds   fall  out,   the    part   that  is  left  behind  is 
not  alive.     All  the  living  part  has  gone  out  of 
the  dry  pods  down  into  the  bulbs  or  the  under- 
ground stems ;  and  the  pods,  too,  crumble 
to  pieces  and   make  good  food  for  other 
plants. 

But  the  seeds  are  alive.  They  lie  in  the 
earth  and  wait  for  the  time  to  come 
when  they  may  wake  up  and  make 
new  plants  with  young  bulbs  or 
thick  underground  stems. 

But  how  about  the  roses?  Do 
they  not  die  in  the  fall?  Why,  what 
are  you  thinking  of  ?  Do  they  not 
wake  up  next  spring  and  cover  their 
stems  with  leaves  and  flowers  ?  Dead 
bushes  could  not  do  so. 

You  see  how  it  is.  The  leaves  work  all 
summer  long.  They  store  up  food  in  the  roots  and 
the  stems.  When  the  frost  comes  and  pinches  them, 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    187 

they  know  it  is  time  to  stop  work  and  go  to  sleep 
for  the  winter.  They  have  roots  down  in  the  ground. 
And  now  you  know  as  well  as  I  do  how  they  man- 
age it. 

When  the  leaves  have  done  their  work  and  fed 
the  flowers  and  the  stems  and  the  seeds,  and  when 
the  stems  and  the  roots  are  stored  full  of  food,  the 
leaves  stop  working.  The  green  little  cells  that 
made  them  so  bright  all  summer  go  away;  the 
living  part  of  the  plant  and  the  rich  juices  find 
their  way  into  the  roots  and  stems.  Only  the  dead 
frames  of  the  houses  that  the  living  parts  of  the 
leaves  built  in  which  to  do  their  work  are  left.  They 
are  dry  and  lifeless;  they  never  were  alive.  The 
living  protoplasm  has  left  them  and  unhinged  them 
so  that  they  soon  fall  off. 

You  know  what  becomes  of  them.  They  change 
into  a  great  many  substances.  The  little  particles 
in  them  let  go  of  each  other  and  unite  with  other 
particles.  In  this  way  gases  are  made  which  go 
out  into  the  air,  but  some  parts  are  solid  minerals 
which  the  roots  took  out  of  the  earth  to  build 
the  frame  of  the  leaves.  All  these  minerals  fall 
back  into  the  earth  for  the  roots  to  use  again 
next  year. 

So  you  see  the  leaf  frame  simply  changes  back 


188  FLOWERS  AND   THEIR  FRIENDS. 

again  into  the  gases  and  minerals  of  which  it  had 
been  made  by  the  leaves  and  the  roots. 

As  the  protoplasm  withdraws  from  the  leaves  of 
the  rose  bushes  and  of  many  other  plants,  particu- 
larly the  trees,  the  resting  time  of  the  plant  is 
announced  by  the  most  brilliant  colors,  the  result  of 
certain  changes  going  on  within  the  leaf.  These 
bright  colors  that  make  our  autumn  woods  so  en- 
trancing are  not  dependent  upon  the  frost,  as  many 
think,  but  upon  certain  changes  going  on  within  the 
leaf  itself  as  it  ripens,  just  as  fruit,  when  it  ripens, 
takes  on  glowing  colors.  The  bright  autumn  leaves 
are  ripe  leaves  getting  ready  to  fall.  Why  do  you 
suppose  leaves  fall  ?  It  is  better  that  they  should ; 
the  sooner  they  fall,  the  sooner  they  will  be  con- 
verted into  leaf  mould  to  feed  other  plants.  So  the 
plants  have  a  way  of  gathering  their  ripe  harvest  of 
leaves. 

The  falling  of  the  leaf  is  not  an  accident,  nor  is  it 
dependent  upon  the  wind ;  when  the  time  comes,  the 
leaves  go  down,  wind  or  no  wind,  though  doubtless 
the  wind  helps  them.  When  they  are  fully  ripe,  the 
leaves  let  go !  The  cells  that  connect  the  leaf  stem 
with  the  branch  shrivel  and  shrink  until  the  leaf  is 
entirely  separated  from  the  parent  plant ;  when  this 
happens,  the  leaf  falls.  The  ripe  leaf  is  less  juicy 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    189 

than  the  young  leaf;  its.  juices  have  departed  and 
left  the  stiff,  lifeless  framework  and  the  hardened 
skin,  with  the  emptied  cells  beneath,  to  find  their 
way  to  the  earth. 

But  while  the  trees  and  bushes,  the  bulbs  and 
underground  stems  store  away  the  living  part  of  the 
plant,  what  about  the  morning-glories  and  nastur- 
tiums? They  do  not  send  their  living  part  into 
roots  or  stems,  for  they  do  not  grow  again  another 
year.  What  now  becomes  of  them? 

They  die,  you  say.  I  do  not  say  that.  I  say  they 
change.  Of  course  the  seeds  live  on.  The  morning- 
glory  seeds,  and  the  seeds  of  all  the  plants  that  grow 
wild  in  a  climate  like  ours,  are  not  hurt  by  the  cold. 

You  very  well  know  that  some  of  the  life  of  the 
plant  is  folded  up  in  the  seeds.  But  the  vines  and 
leaves  seem  to  be  hurt  by  the  cold.  They  fall  limp 
to  the  ground.  They  change.  The  little  particles 
of  which  they  are  made  let  go  of  each  other;  they 
unite  with  other  particles  in  new  ways.  They  float 
off  in  the  air  as  gases. 

These  gases  are  carried  about  by  the  wind  and 
meet  new  plants,  which  build  them  into  their  leaves 
and  stems. 

Part  of  the  particles  in  the  frosted  vine  do  not 
become  gases ;  they  let  go  of  other  particles  and  sink 


190  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

down  as  minerals,  to  be -taken  up  by  plant  roots 
another  season.  Other  parts  lie  on  the  earth  in  the 
form  of  rich  vegetable  mould,  which  is  also  taken 
and  built  into  new  plants.  So  when  our  morning- 
glory  or  nasturtium  vine  disappears,  it  is  not  lost ; 
it  has  only  changed  its  form. 

Instead  of  being  a  nasturtium,  its  particles  may 
find  themselves  built  into  a  dozen  different  plants. 

So  what  we  call  death  is  only  change.  Not  an 
atom  of  any  plant  is  lost. 

Besides,  if  no  plants  changed  back  again  into 
gases  and  minerals,  there  could  be  no  growth  and 
no  flowers  in  the  world.  There  would  be  no  mate- 
rial to  make  new  plants,  and  no  room  for  new  plants 
to  grow. 

There  would  be  no  room  for  seeds  to  sprout  and 
no  need  of  seeds,  so  the  plants,  which  never  do  any- 
thing that  is  not  necessary,  would  not  make  any 
seeds ;  and  if  there  were  no  seeds,  there  would  be  no 
flowers.  What  a  dreary  earth  it  would  be  if  plants 
never  changed  —  if  they  never,  as  we  say,  died  !  The 
same  old  plants  living  forever,  —  no  flowers,  no  open- 
ing buds,  no  tender  spring  green, 
no  bright  autumn  colors. 

It  is  good  that  the  plants  die, 
or  change,  as  I  prefer  to  call  it. 


NOTHING   BUT   LEAVES. 


AFTER  all,  that  is  what  a  rose 
is,  —  nothing  but  leaves ;  and 
what  a  violet  is  and  a  lily  and 
a  nasturtium  and  a  honeysuckle 
and  all  the  flowers  you  can 
name. 

You   do   not    believe 
it  ?   That  is  because  you 
know  so  very  little  about 
leaves.    When  you  know  more,  you 
will  believe  it,  see  if  you  do  not. 

Perhaps  when  you  know  where 
the  flowers  came  from  and  how 
they  came  to  be  flowers  at  all,  you 
will  change  your  mind  about  several 
things.  Anyway,  there  is  one  thing 
you  do  know,  because  you  have  studied  geography 
and  about  the  stars  and  about  the  earth's  crust 
and  all  that. 

You  know  that  once  upon  a  time  there  were  no 
flowers  in  all   the   round  old   earth.      You  do  not 

191 


192  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

know  it?  Why,  of  course  you  do.  You  know  that 
once  upon  a  time  there  was  no  life  on  the  earth,  at 
least  not  what  we  call  life  now.  It  was  so  hot 
nothing  could  live,  not  even  a  salamander,  which 
they  say  lives  in  the  fire,  although,  of  course,  this  is 
not  true,  and  it  could  no  more  live  in  the  fire  than 
you  could. 

Well,  we  are  told  that  once  the  earth  was  about  as 
hot  as  the  sun  is  now, —  just  a  mass  of  blazing  gases 
and  melted  rocks  and  metals. 

You  would  not  have  known  it  if  you  could  have 
seen  it,  and,  what  is  more,  you  would  not  have 
wanted  to  see  it ;  you  would  have  been  afraid  to 
come  near  enough. 

You  could  not  have  found  Lake  Michigan  on  it 
nor  even  the  Atlantic  Ocean  nor  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains, and  the  reason  you  could  not  have  found 
them  is,  they  were  not  there.  There  was  no  Lake 
Michigan  and  no  Atlantic  Ocean  and  no  Rocky 
Mountains. 

You  see,  they  had  not  been  made  yet.  All  the 
water  and  minerals  were  bubbling  and  seething  and 
whirling  around  in  the  most  awful  storms.  You 
would  have  wanted  to  get  as  far  from  the  earth  in 
those  days  as  you  possibly  could  ;  not  even  the  North 
Pole  was  cool  enough  to  rest  upon  with  any  comfort. 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    193 

This  went  on  for  a  few  millions  of  years  probably, 
but  the  earth  was  all  the  time  getting  a  little  cooler, 
until  it  got  so  cool  that  things  began  to  harden  and 
the  dry  land  to  appear.  But  mother  earth  was  in  a 
state  of  terrific  excitement  even  then,  and  every 
once  in  a  while  would  heave  such  a  sigh  that  an 
earthquake  or  volcanic  eruption  would  break  forth. 
But  as  old  earth,  or  young  earth  I  suppose  it  was 
then,  grew  older  and  calmer,  it  settled  more  and 
more  into  its  present  form.  It  got  so  cold  and  old 
after  awhile  that  it  became  wrinkled,  like  the  skin 
of  an  apple  in  the  late  fall.  You  know  how  that  is. 
Only  mother  earth  was  a  very  large  apple  and  her 
wrinkles  were  very  deep,  and  in  fact  they  made  the 
great  mountain  ranges. 

You  need  not  believe  all  this  unless  you  want  to, 
but  it  is  true,  —  that  is,  the  wise  people,  who  know 
more  than  you  and  I  ever  will,  say  so. 

But  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  leaves  ? 

It  has  as  much  to  do  with  leaves  as  the  fire  in  the 
stove  has  to  do  with  the  boiling  of  the  tea  kettle. 

Of  course,  while  the  earth  was  in  this  overheated 
state,  nothing  could  grow  on  it.  But  it  kept  getting 
cooler  and  cooler,  until  at  last  life  began  to  appear. 
Just  exactly  what  this  first  life  looked  like  I  do  not 
know.  Nobody  does,  because,,  you  see,  nobody  was 


194  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

living  then  to  tell  about  it  and  write  it  down.  But 
very  likely  queer  mushy  plants  were  the  first  to  come 
along,  and  they  were  about  all  leaf.  So  far  we  may 
be  pretty  sure. 

After  awhile  plants  with  stems  and  leaves  grew 
up  and  flourished. 

They  were  queer  enough,  no  doubt,  for  there  are 
pictures  of  some  of  them  which  the  rocks  took  and 
kept  for  us,  and  people  often  break  open  a  rock 
nowadays  and  find  these  old  plant  pictures. 

They  are  what  we  call  fossils,  and  now  I 
have  no  doubt  you  know  all  about  it ;  if 
you  do  not  you  will  some  day,  —  that  is,  if 
you  care  to. 

From  what  the  rocks  tell  us,  and  for 
other  reasons,  we  feel  pretty  sure  that  the 
s£  earlier  plants  had  only  leaf  and  stem,  but 
no  flowers.  And  the  very  first  leaves  were 
not  like  the  leaves  we  see  in  the  woods  and  gardens 
about  us,  for  they  were  probably  large  and  mushy  and 
had  no  veins  to  speak  of.  If  you  had  picked  one  up  it 
would  have  been  flabby  and  squashy,  and  you  would 
have  been  glad  to  put  it  clown  again.  But  nobody 
ever  did  pick  one  up,  because  nobody  was  there. 

The  earth  was  not  ready  for  us  yet.  It  was  all 
soft  and  swampy  or  hard  and  cheerless,  and  we  had 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    195 

to  wait  until  these  queer  pioneer  plants  gradually 
changed  into  other  plants  and  made  the  earth  fit  to 
live  on. 

But  these  flabby  old  friends  of  ours  went  to  work 
with  a  will  to  get  things  in  shape  for  us  to  come. 
Their  green  leaves  and  stems,  where  they  had  any, 
ate  the  gases  in  the  air  and  stored  them  up  as  plant 
material.  Then  they  died.  They  did  us  as  much 
good  by  dying  as  by  living,  for  only  part  of  their 
substance  went  back  as  gases  into  the  air ;  the  rest 
went  into  the  ground  and  began  to  make  soil  for 
other  plants  to  grow  in. 

So  Mr.  Flabby  Leaf  was  a  very  good  life  starter. 

One  thing  we  are  quite  sure  of,  and  that  is,  these 
earlier  plants  did  not  have  any  seeds.     When  new 
plants  came  from  the  old  ones,  they  merely  sprouted 
out  from  the  leaves  or  the  roots,  as  a  certain  fern 
that  grows  in  Fayal  and,  other  places  does  to-day. 
It  is  fun  to  raise  this  fern  in  a  window  box  and 
watch  the  young  ferns  sprout  out  of  the  edge  of  the  1|| 
leaves  of  the  old  fern.    After  they  get  two  or  three 
tiny  green  leaves  and  the  cunningest  little  curled-up 
frond,  just  like  a  big  fern,  off  they  tumble  down  to 
the  ground,   where  they  strike   root   and  grow  as 
calmly  as  though  they  had  come  the  regular  plant 
way  and  sprouted  from  a  seed. 


. 
196  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

They  do  come  the  regular  way  the  very  early 
plants  did,  instead  of  coming  the  way  modern  plants 
do,  for  in  some  such  way  the  earlier  plants,  no  doubt, 
reproduced  themselves. 

They  had  no  flowers  and  no  seeds.  Leaf  and  stem 
did  it  all.  You  see,  these  first  plants  were  simple 
people,  not  complicated  at  all,  and  so  each  part  of 
the  plant  was  able  to  do  all  its  own  work.  But 
after  awhile  the  plant  world  became  more  complex ; 
the  earth  grew  drier,  for  one  thing.  The  first  plants 
lived  in  the  water,  no  doubt,  and  so  everything  was 
much  easier  for  them  5  at  least  they  could  always 
get  plenty  of  water,  which  is  a  matter  of  great  im- 
portance with  plants. 

No  water,  no  plant.  Then,  too,  the  earth  cooled 
more  and  more,  and  from  being  uniformly  warm  and 
moist,  which  was  just  the  best  conditions  for  plants 
to  live  without  taking  any  trouble  about  it,  the  air 
was  sometimes  colder  and  contained  less  moisture. 

So  the  plants  that  grew  on  the  land  had  to  invent 
ways  of  getting  and  keeping  an  extra  amount  of 
water,  and  even  those  that  lived  in  the  water  had  to 
look  around  and  find  a  way  of  protecting  themselves 
against  changes  of  temperature. 

As  the  earth  grew  cooler  and  drier,  and  the 
changes  from  hot  to  cold  at  the  different  seasons 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    197 


became  more  marked,  the  plants  that  grew  on  the 
prairies  and  mountain  sides,  where  it  was  very 
hot  and  damp  at  one  season  and  very  dry  or  very 
cold  at  another,  had  to  find  ways  to  protect  them- 
selves against  these  changes.  So  the  leaves  and 
stems  began  to  be  a  little  more  particular  about 
their  work.  The  leaves  may  have  said,  "We  will 
do  one  kind  of  work  in  one  part  of  us  and  another 
kind  of  work  in  another  part. 
We  will  have  stiff  veins  and 
ribs  to  protect  us  from  being 


198  FLOWERS  AND   THEIR  FRIEND 8. 

blown  to  pieces,  and  we  will  have  our  sap  flow 
through  veins,  instead  of  soaking  all  through  us 
everywhere.  And  we  will  have  a  thick  skin  to 
breathe  through  and  to  protect  us  from  the  sun 
when  it  is  too  hot." 

So  some  lived  on  the  hot  plains  with  small,  thick, 
hard  leaves,  and  others  lived  in  the  damp  shady 
woods  with  large,  thin,  tender  leaves. 

Thus,  you  see,  there  came  about  a  division  of 
labor.  Not  all  at  once, —  oh,  no!  but  so  gradually, 
so  very  gradually  that,  had  you  been  watching  these 
plants  grow  from  year  to  year,  you  could  no  more 
have  seen  any  change  than  you  can  see  a  blade  of 
grass  grow  to-day,  although  you  know  it  does  grow. 
Perhaps  the  plants  on  the  edge  of  a  swamp  were  the 
first  to  change. 

Perhaps  the  water  receded  and  so  gradually  left 
them  higher  and  drier.  As  they  got  less  water, 
they  would  have  to  do  one  of  two  things, —  change 
to  suit  the  new  state  of  affairs  or  give  up  trying 
and  die.  Very  likely  a  good  many  died  ;  the  water 
may  have  receded  too  rapidly,  or  they  could  not  see 
just  how  to  change.  But  others  did  see,  and  they 
stiffened  their  flabby  leaves  with  ribs  and  veins  and 
made  for  themselves  a  thicker  skin,  and  so  lived  on. 
They  survived  because  they  were  the  fittest  to  sur- 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.   199 

vive.  And  now  you  know  the  meaning  of  that  very 
celebrated  saying,  "the  survival  of  the  fittest"; 
whatever  plant  or  animal  can  adapt  itself  the  best 
to  the  place  it  lives  in  is  the  fittest,  of  course,  for 
that  place,  and  so  it  survives  or  lives  on. 

No  doubt,  in  those  early  days,  new  plants  grew 
out  of  the  old  ones  just  anywhere  as  the  baby  plants 
grow  out  of  the  leaf  of  the  Fayal  fern  I  told  you 
about. 

But  as  life  grew  more  and  more  difficult,  as  the 
plants  had  to  contend  with  too  much  heat  at  one 
time  and  too  great  cold  at  another,  with  now  a 
season  of  moisture  and  now  one  of  great  dryness, 
their  leaves,  as  you  know,  began  to  change  and  di- 
vide up  the  work.  A  part  of  the  leaf  breathed  for 
the  plant ;  another  part  ate  for  it ;  another  part  pro- 
tected it.  Nor  was  this  all.  Some  leaves  did  one 
kind  of  work  and  some  another,  as  time  went  on. 

When  animals  oame  upon  the  earth  they  ate  the 
plants,  and  so  the  plants  had  to  partly  protect  them- 
selves to  keep  from  being  entirely  destroyed.  Thus 
some  plants  changed  part  of  their  stems  or  leaves 
into  sharp  thorns,  as  we  see  to-day  in  the  hawthorns 
and  cactuses.  Some,  like  the  mullein,  covered  their 
leaves  with  a  disagreeable  wooly  substance  that 
stuck  to  animals'  mouths  and  made  them  avoid  the 


200  FLOWERS  AND   THEIR   FRIENDS. 

plants.  These  wooly  coverings  served  two  purposes, 
—  regulated  evaporation  and  protected  from  the 
attacks  of  animals.  Some,  like  the  aconite,  manu- 
factured a  poisonous,  disagreeable  juice, 
while  others,  like  the  nettle,  clothed  the 
stems  with  stinging  hairs. 

There  are  many,  many  ways  by  which 
plants  have  changed  their  leaves  and 
stems  in  order  to  protect  themselves  from 
being  eaten,  and  all  this  came  about  very, 
very  gradually. 

While  these  things  were  happening, 
other  things  were  happening  too.  Wher- 
ever there  is  life  there  is  change.  Living  things 
keep  changing  all  the  time. 

The  little  fern  that  drops  from  the  leaf  of  its 
parent  is,  in  a  general  way,  like  the  parent,  but  it  is 
not  exactly  like  its  parent ;  it  is  itself  and  has  some 
peculiarities  of  its  own.  You  see,  it  changes  a  little 
from  the  parent  form  or,  as  we  say,  varies.  Every 
living  thing  has  this  power  to  vary  within  limits. 
No  doubt,  the  power  of  variation  was  much  greater 
in  early  times,  and  animals  and  plants  were  able  to 
change  much  more  then  than  now. 

As  time  went  on,  things  sort  of  settled  down,  as  it 
were,  and  stopped  changing  so  rapidly. 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    201 

But  way  back  in  the  early  ages  the  plants  changed 
a  good  deal.  And  all  they  had  to  work  with,  you 
will  remember,  was  just  stem  and  leaves, —  not 
another  thing.  But  that  was  enough.  They  could 
change  stem  and  leaves  into  thorns,  as  we  know, 
and  they  could  do  something  else.  They  could 
change  leaves  into  pistils. 

When  the  leaves  divided  their  work,  some  plants 
devoted  certain  of  their  leaves  to  the  task  of  making 
new  plants.  Ferns  show  this  up  to  this  very  day. 

Look  at  a  clump  of  ferns  in  the  woods  any  time 
in  the  middle  of  the  summer  or  later,  and  you  will 
see  that  some  of  the  fern  leaves  have  little  dark 
spots  on  their  backs.  Sometimes  these  dots  are  on 
their  margins,  sometimes  on  the  ribs,  and  sometimes 
scattered  everywhere  over  the  back  of  the  leaf. 

These  dots  are  little  cups  filled  with  a  fine  dust, 
which  falls  on  the  ground  and  finally  gives  rise  to 
more  ferns.  It  is  sometimes  called  fern  seed,  but 
the  bits  of  dust  are  not  exactly  seeds.  In  the  end 
they  answer  the  same  purpose,  however.  Well,  sup- 
pose one  of  these  fern  leaves  with  the  dots  growing 
on  it  should  curl  over  backwards  until  its  edges  met, 
and  suppose  the  little  grains  should  become  true 
seeds,  then  we  would  have  a  very  good  ovary  with 
the  ovules  inside. 


202  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR  FRIENDS. 

Fern  leaves  do  not  act  in  this  way;  they  are 
too  old-fashioned.  But  some  of  the  leaves  in  flower- 
ing plants  do.  They  just  roll  up  into  a  pistil, 
with  young  plants,  in  the  form  of  seeds,  growing 
inside. 

And  to  this  day  that  is  all  a  pistil  is, —  a  leaf,  or  a 
whorl  or  circle  of  leaves,  rolled  together,  with  seeds 
growing  along  the  inner  part.  Of  course,  in  time, 
these  pistil  leaves  changed  very  much,  and  to-day 
we  find  all  sorts  of  pistils,  and  by  just  looking  at 
them,  we  would  never  suspect  they  were  leaves  or 
ever  had  been.  And  they  are  not  leaves  any  more, 
and  they  themselves  never  have  been  leaves;  but 
long  ago  the  pistils  of  their  ancestors  were  leaves  or 
parts  of  leaves,  and  they  have  inherited  and  im- 
proved upon  these  pistil  leaves,  as  a  boy  improves 
upon  a  willow  twig  and  makes  it  into  a  beautiful 
carved  whistle  that  does  not  look  at  all  like  a  willow 
twig,  and  yet  that  is  just  what  it  is  at  heart.  So 
you  see,  one  of  the  most  important  parts  of  the 
flower  is,  after  all,  "nothing  but  leaves." 

After  seeing  how  the  pistil,  with  its  seed -children, 
is  modified  leaves,  you  will  not  be  surprised  to  learn 
that  stamens,  too,  are  merely  modified  leaves.  Any- 
way, whether  you  are  surprised  or  not,  that  is  just 
what  they  are.  Tender  little  leaves  folded  a  part  of 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.   203 


themselves  together  into  little  rooms  or  cells,  and  on 
the  inside  of  these  cells  the  pollen  grains  grew. 

Now  the  plant  was  all  fitted  out.  It  had  flowers, 
not  very  beautiful  ones,  to  be  sure,  as  they  had 
nothing  but  pistils  and  stamens.  Still 
they  were  flowers,  and  flowers  are 
flowers  whether  they  are  bright 
or  not. 

Pistils    and    stamens    were 
enough    at    first.      But    times 
change.     Each  plant  tried  every  pos- 
sible means  to  make  strong  seeds,  so 
it  could   live   in  the  crowded  world. 
It  did  not  wish  to  be  crowded  out, 
you  see.     So  when  it  discovered  the 

value   of   cross-fertilization,    it 

began,  so  to  speak,  to  invent  ways  to  bring 
this  about. 

The  insects  with  wings  came  to  it  and 
brought  it  pollen,  so  it  learned  to  coax  the 
the  insects  to  come  oftener.     It  made 
quantities  of  pollen,  so  the  insect  could 
eat  what  it  would  and  still  leave  enough  for  the  plant. 

It,  no  doubt,  had  several  rows  of  stamens,  as  a 
wild  rose  or  a  cactus  flower  has  to-day.  But  it  soon 
found  out  a  good  use  to  put  some  of  these  stamens  to. 


204  FLOWERS   AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

It  wanted  the  bees  to  see  and  come,  so  it  changed 
some  of  its  stamens  into  petals. 

The  anthers  ceased  to  grow,  and  they  and  the 
filaments  spread  out  broad  and  bright.  So,  you  see, 
petals,  too,  are  nothing  but  leaves, — very  much 
changed  leaves,  true,  as  they  were  first  leaves,  then 
stamens,  and  then  petals,  but  that  does  not  prevent 
their  having  come  from  leaves  after  all. 

If  you  want  to  see  how  it  is  done,  look  at  a  water 
lily  next  time  you  get  a  chance. 

Unless  it  is  a  very  unaccommodating  lily  indeed, 
you  will  be  sure  to  see  stamens  changing  into  petals. 

Some  of  the  inside  petals  are  small  with  an  anther  . 
at  the  tip. 

Of  course  flowers  do  not  go  through  all  these 
changes  every  time  they  bloom  now.  They  used  to 
way,  way  back,  when  things  were  in  a  general  state 
of  change,  but  after  awhile  they  found  out  just  how 
to  do  it,  and  so  out  of  the  tiny  buds  at  once  made 
pistils  and  stamens  and  petals  and  sepals. 

For  sepals,  too,  came  from  stamens.  The  plants 
made  all  these  new  forms  out  of  the  materials  of 
their  leaf  buds  and  wrapped  them  all  together  into 
a  flower  bud ;  so  when  this  opened,  there  were  the 
parts  all  ready  to  go  to  work  without  any  more 
shifting  around. 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    205 

The  calyx  was  ready  to  protect,  the  corolla  to  call 
the  bees  and  butterflies,  the  stamens  to  make  pollen, 
the  pistils  to  make  ovules. 

Sometimes  flowers  forget  and  go  back  to  the  old 
ways  of  doing  things ;  and  if  we  are  lucky  enough 
to  find  such  a  flower,  we  can  see  just  how  it 
happened. 

Sometimes  roses  behave  in  this  peculiar  way,  and 
the  flower  goes  back  to  leaves. 

I  used  to  know  a  bush  whose  roses  did  that.  The 
pistils  were  leafy  and  also  the  stamens,  and  some- 
times a  branch  grew  right  out  of  the  middle  of  a 
rose  as  it  does  out  of  a  leaf  bud.  Of  course  it 
was  a  very  ugly-looking  thing,  neither  flower  nor 
leaf,  but  it  was  very  instructive. 

What  do  you  suppose  double  flowers  are? 

Very  often  they  are  only  flowers  whose  stamens 
have  changed  into  petals. 

A  double  rose  has  fewer  stamens  than  a  single 
rose,  and  sometimes  all  the  stamens  are  changed, 
and  the  rose  has  not  a  grain  of  pollen  to  help  itself 
with.  What  becomes  of  its  seeds?  It  does  not  have 
any,  as  a  rule.  Where  flowers  become  very  double, 
the  vitality  goes  to  make  petals  instead  of  essential 
organs,  as  stamens  and  pistils  are  called,  and  such 
flowers  often  set  no  seeds. 


206  FLQWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

Then  how  do  they  continue  the  life  of  the  race? 

Sometimes  simply  because  somebody  takes  care  of 
them.  Almost  always  double  flowers  are  cultivated 
ones.  People  take  them  and  tend  them,  give  them 
rich  soil  to  grow  in,  water  them,  and,  if  necessary, 
keep  them  warm.  Such  plants  seem  to  grow  lazy 
and  helpless,  as  rich  people  who  pamper  themselves 
a  great  deal  always  do.  They  have  all  they  want 
without  any  effort  of  their  own,  and  so  they  cease  to 
be  self-supporting ;  they  cannot  even  raise  their  own 
children,  but  live  and  die  seedless.  Such  plants,  if 
left  to  themselves,  would  quickly  die,  as  they  would 
be  crowded  out  by  sturdier  growths,  or  else  they 
would  change  their  habits  at  once  and  become  good 
seed-setting,  industrious  plants  once  more,  with  a 
tendency  to  stop  having  double  flowers. 

There  are  one  or  two  things  about  corollas  that  I 
am  sure  you  would  like  to  know.  One  is,  how  did 
the  flowers  manage  to  change  stamens  into  corollas? 
Another  is,  how  did  they  manage  to  give  them  such 
bright  colors  ? 

About  corolla-making,  —  if  you  are  determined  to 
know  that,  you  will  have  to  take  yourself  off  to  that 
far-away  time  when  there  were  no  flowers.  Then, 
in  course  of  time,  while  changing  about  and  trying 
to  get  fitted  to  their  surroundings,  the  plants,  as 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    207 


you  know,  rolled  some  of  their  leaves  into  pistils 
and  stamens.     But  still  they  had  no  petals. 

The  pistils  and  stamens  were  flowers,  however, — 
as  much  flowers  as  they  would  ever  be, 
no  matter  how  much  corolla  they  might 
develop. 

A  corolla  does  not  make  a  flower;    by 
this  time  you  know  the  important  part  of 
a  flower  is  the  pistil  and  stamens,  and  so, 
even  to-day,  some  flowers,  as  the  elms 
and  some  maples,  have  no  petals  at 
all.      When   such    maples   are   in 
bloom,  you  will    see   gay   fringes 
decorating  the  trees.     This  fringe 
is  made  of  the  long  pedicels  with 
the    stamens    at    the    end.      The 
stamens  swing  in  the  breeze,  and 
the  pollen  is  blown  to  the  stigmas 
which  are  often  in  flowers  on  dif- 
ferent trees. 

Now,  as  plants  grew  and  adapted  themselves 
to  their  surroundings,  they  produced  more 
seeds  than  could  by  any  chance  find  room  in  the 
earth  to  grow.  So  every  little  seed  that  fell  had 
to  fight  its  way  with  a  host  of  other  seeds  and 
plants.  A  defective  seed  or  a  weak  one  would 


208  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

stand  no  chance  at  all.  The  others  would  crowd  it 
out.  We  know  how  that  is  in  a  garden.  The 
delicate  flowers  have  to  be  helped  or  the  strong 
weeds  would  kill  them.  We  pull  up  the  weeds  and 
let  the  flowers  have  the  whole  garden  to  themselves. 
But  in  the  woods  and  fields  each  plant  has  to  take 
care  of  itself  and  struggle  up  as  best  it  can. 

This  fight  of  the  plants  for  a  place  to  grow  in  is 
called  the  struggle  for  existence.  Now,  whatever 
would  help  a  plant  in  the  struggle  for  existence 
would,  of  course,  be  of  great  benefit  to  that  plant. 
As  we  know,  cross-fertilization  is  a  very  great  help ; 
it  makes  stronger  and  better  seeds,  and  the  plants 
whose  seeds  were  regularly  cross-fertilized  would  be 
the  ones  to  survive. 

Where  pistils  and  stamens  are  forming,  there  is 
a  great  deal  of  nourishment  brought  to  that  part  of 
the  plant,  and  substances  are  being  changed  there. 
Very  often  sweet  juices  are  present.  Long  ago 
when  insects,  in  flying  about,  smelled  these  sweets 
they  doubtless  would  go  and  eat  them,  and  they 
would  also  eat  the  pollen.  As  they  went  from 
flower  to  flower  looking  for  food,  they  would  carry 
pollen  sticking  to  their  legs  or  bodies,  and  so  would 
sometimes  fertilize  the  flowers. 

The  seeds  from  such  flowers  would  be  strong  and 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    209 

would  have  the  best  chance  to  survive.  The  plants 
that  grew  from  these  seeds  would  also  inherit  the 
tendency  to  secrete  sweet  juices  near  the  flower. 

In  probing  for  sweets,  the  insect  would  irritate  the 
parts  it  touched,  and  this  would  cause  an  extra  flow  of 
sap  there  and  very  likely  the  manufacture  of  more 
sweet  juice ;  so  the  nectary  came  to  be  developed. 

You  can  understand  how  this  might  be  by  recalling 
how  the  skin  of  your  hand  changes  when  you  first 
try  to  do  some  new  and  hard  work,  like  rowing  a  boat. 

After  you  have  rowed  a  little  while  your  hand  is 
blistered.  The  constant  rubbing  of  the  oar  in  one 
place  has  irritated  it,  just  as  you  can  imagine  the 
tongues  of  the  insects  rubbing  against  the  delicate 
flower  tissue  would  irritate  it.  Wherever  a  place  on 
the  skin  is  irritated,  the  blood  flows  to  that  spot; 
and  so  in  the  plant,  where  it  is  irritated,  there*  will 
likely  be  a  collection  of  sap.  After  the  blood  has 
flowed  to  the  place  on  your  hand  which  was  rubbed 
by  the  oar,  the  spot  becomes  red  and  inflamed  and 
pains  you,  and  finally  the  skin  separates  in  the  form 
of  a  blister  and  a  new  skin  forms  underneath ;  and 
if  you  keep  on  rowing,  your  hand  does  not  keep  on 
blistering,  but  actually  makes  a  new  kind  of  skin  to 
protect  the  rubbed  places,  and  what  we  call  a  "  cal- 
lous" or  hard  spot  is  formed.  The  skin  is  many 


210  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

times  thicker  here  than  elsewhere,  and  was  formed 
on  purpose  to  protect  the  place.  So  we  can  under- 
stand how  irritation  might  change  a  plant  organ 
and  in  time  form  a  nectary. 

But  how  about  petals,  you  are  asking.  Well, 
imagine  yourself  in  those  old  times  when  plants 
made  their  first  flowers  out  of  pistils  and  stamens 
only. 

These  primitive  flowers  were  probably  not  very 
showy.  Primitive  flowers  means  first  flowers, — 
flowers  that  lived  way  back  in  the  beginning  of 
plant  life. 

They  had  no  petals,  but  they  secreted  juices  which 
the  insects  liked.  Those  early  insects  were  queer  fel- 
lows, too,  not  very  much  like  our  insects,  except  that 
they  were  fond  of  sweets  and  liked  to  eat  the  tender 
parts  of  the  flowers,  just  as  our  insects  do  to-day. 
They  ate  nectar  when  they  could  find  it  and  did  not 
disdain  pollen,  which,  it  is  to  be  feared,  they  some- 
times ate,  anther  and  all;  and,  what  is  worse,  they 
in  all  probability  frequently  dined  on  pistil,  which 
was  very  bad  for  the  plant. 

Now  imagine  one  strong  plant  secreting  a  good 
deal  of  nectar.  The  insects  would  be  likely  to  eat 
this  and  let  the  pollen  and  pistil  alone,  only  in  get- 
ting to  the  nectar,  they  would  be  apt  to  dust  the 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    211 

pistil  with  pollen  from  another  plant  which  they  had 
been  visiting  and  would  also  brush  off  some  pollen 
against  their  bodies. 

Thus  the  strong  plant  with  the  abundant  nectar 
would  be  cross-fertilized  and  would  keep  its  pistil 
unharmed.  It  wrould  be  very  likely  to  develop  good 
strong  seeds  that  would  grow  and  again  bear  strong 
flowers  with  plenty  of  nectar.  Now,  remember  the 
essential  organs  —  that  is,  stamens  and  pistil  —  seem 
to  find  it  a  little  easier  to  change  than  other  parts  of 
the  plant ;  so  it  would  not  be  surprising  if  in  time 
some  of  the  stamens  were  to  become  different.  You 
see,  the  insects  in  visiting  the  flowers  would  irritate 
them  more  or  less  walking  over  them  and  clinging 
to  them,  and  they  would  be  likely  to  undergo  change 
for  this  reason ;  and  if  it  happened  that  in  some 
flower  a  row  of  stamens  got  too  full  of  sap  to  know 
what  to  do  with  themselves  and  so  spread  out  a 
little  broader  and  more  leaf -like  and  kept  their  yel- 
low stamen  color  or  bleached-out  white,  that  flower 
would  be  seen  far  and  near  and  the  insects  would 
go  straight  to  it,  for  insects  have  the  sharpest  kind 
of  eyes  for  seeing  bright  colors  a  long  way  off.  You 
see  what  would  happen ;  all  the  flowers  whose 
stamens  had  done  so  would  be  abundantly  cross- 
fertilized, —  that  is,  all  their  seeds  would  get  fresh 


212  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

pollen  from  another  strong  plant,  and  the  plants 
growing  from  these  seeds  would  inherit  the  tendency 
of  their  parents  to  form  petal-like  parts  from  some 
of  the  stamens.  The  flower  could  well  afford  to  lose 
part  of  its  stamens  for  this  purpose.  Of  course  as 
time  went  on,  these  stamens,  which  were  half  petals, 
might  develop  more  and  more  in  the  direction  of 
signals,  —  that  is,  might  become  more  and  more  per- 
fect petals,  finally  losing  all  trace  of  their  old  life  as 
stamens. 

Of  course  no  one  can  say  that  is  just  the  way  it 
came  about,  but  it  is  likely  that  in  some  such  way  it 
happened,  for  there  are  proofs  of  it  which  you  may 
like  to  read  when  you  grow  older. 

So,  you  see,  flowers  are  nothing  but  leaves  after 
all,  —  very  much  changed  leaves,  to  be  sure,  but  yet 
just  leaves. 

Sometimes  when  plants  and  animals  have  changed 
into  a  new  form,  they  change  back  again.  We 
know  some  plants  which  once  had  petals  but  which 
have  again  lost  their  petals  and  gone  back  to  a  form 
which  has  no  petals.  Such  backward  changes  we 
call  retrogression,  and  it  is  sometimes  difficult  to  find 
out  whether  a  flower  with  no  petals  is  a  primitive 
form  which  for  some  reason  has  not  changed  or 
whether  it  is  one  which  has  changed  and  gone  back 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    213 


again.     Usually,  though,  we  can  find  traces  of  petals 
and  sepals  in  flowers  which  have  retrogressed. 

You  see,  a  flower  depends  upon  its  surroundings 
for  its  shape.  If  its  surroundings  (and  of  course 
this  includes  its  insect  visitors)  are  such  as  to  favor 
its  growth  in  the  line  of  petals,  it  does  so.  But  if 
for  some  reason  it  becomes  easier  for  it  to  grow  and 
be  fertilized  in  some  other  way,  perhaps  by  making 
abundance  of  light  pollen  which  is  blown  by  the 
wind,  as  in  the  maple  trees,  then  it  may  gradually 
lose  its  petals,  as  it  depends  less  and  less  on  insects 
and  more  and  more  on  the  wind  for  cross-fertilization. 
Nothing  in  life  stands  still ;  it  is  always  moving, — 
going  on  or  going  back.  And  this,  we  know,  is  just 
the  same  in  human  life. 

We  cannot  stand 
still ;  we  must  keep 
growing  wiser  and 
stronger  and  better, 
or  else  we  must  do 
the  opposite. 


SIGNS   OF   OTHER  TIMES. 


IN  the  beginning  flowers  seem  to  have 
had  their  petals  all  separate  from  each 
other.  Some  do  still,  and  these  we  call 
polypetalous,  because  "poly-"  means 
many,  and  they  have  many  petals.  But 
other  flowers,  like  our  morning-glory, 
have  no  separate  petals;  all  are  grown 
together  into  a  tube  with  a  bright 
border. 

But  this  tube  and  border  tell  us  a 
little  story  if  we  are  able  to  hear  it. 

They  tell  us   of   the   time  when   the 
morning-glory  had  several  petals.     More 
than  this,  they  tell  us  just  how  many 
it  had.     If  we  were  to  guess  we  should 
probably  say  five,   because  it  seems  so 
fond  of  the  number  five,  with  its  five  nectaries, 
five    nectar    guides,    five    stamens,    and  five 
sepals. 

If  we  guessed  five  we  should  guess  just   right. 
There  is  no  doubt  but  that  once  upon  a  time  the 


214 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALB  SORTS  OF  THINGS.   215 


plants  from  which  our  morning-glories  are  descended 
had  five  separate  petals.  The  morning-glories  them- 
selves manage  it  differently  now,  but  it  took  them  a 
long  time  to  do  it.  They  were  working  away,  long 
before  the  great  pyramids  of  Egypt  were  built,  to 
get  their  five  petals  united  into  one  piece.  But  it  is 
done,  and  they  have  learned  how  to  twist  the  flower 
up  tightly  in  the  bud  and  then  unroll  it  in  all  its 
glory. 

They  never  have  five  petals  now,  but 
they  still  bear  traces  of  it. 

Look  at  the  little  notch  on  the  border, 
halfway  between  two  nectar  guides.  Does 
that  tell  us  anything? 

Count  the  notches.     Five,  you  see. 

Look  at  the  line  that  runs  from  the  notch 
down  to  the  bottom  of  the  flower. 

The  corolla  looks  as  though  it  had  been  folded 
along  those  lines.  You  can  easily  see  five  long 
creases  ending  in  a  notch.  The  flower  is  folded 
along  these  lines  in  the  bud,  but  we  think  the  lines 
have  yet  another  meaning. 

Carefully  tear  the  corolla  down  the  lines ;  you  see, 
a  very  little  pressure  does  it.  Now  we  have  the 
corolla  in  five  parts,  like  five  petals,  only  it  is  so 
weak  it  can  no  longer  hold  itself  up.  Once  upon  a 


216  FLOWERS  AND   THEIR   FRIENDS. 

time  we  think  it  grew  this  way,  with  five  separate 
petals,  only  the  petals  stood  up  then,  for  they  must 
have  been  stiffer  and  perhaps  were  not  so  long.  It 
was  long,  long  ago,  oh,  very  long  ago,  that  it  had 
its  five  petals.  Then  the  edges  of  the  petals  began 
to  grow  together,  and  they  kept  on  doing  this  until, 
in  course  of  time,  the  whole  length  of  each  petal  had 
grown  fast  to  the  next  one,  all  except  that  little  tiny 
spot  where  the  notch  is. 

We  are  glad  our  morning-glory  kept  this  little 
notch  and  the  line  where  the  sides  of  the  petals 
grew  together,  for  that  is  what  tells  us  the  story  of 
long,  long  ago  when  all  the  petals  were  separate. 

When  finally  they  were  grown  together,  the  corolla 
did  not  need  to  be  so  stiff,  for  its  shape  helped  to 
make  it  firm,  and  then  it  no  longer  used  good  ma- 
terial to  make  stiffening  for  the  petals,  for  that  would 
have  been  a  waste  of  plant  sap,  and  plants  do  not 
like  to  waste  materials.  When  they  find  they  can 
get  along  without  something  they  have  been  used  to 
having,  they  stop  making  it.  Life  is  too  short  and 
too  precious  to  waste  a  bit  of  it.  Our  flower  only 
kept  the  stiffening  in  the  corolla  along  the  paths 
where  it  wished  the  bees  to  go  to  its  honey  cups 
and  where,  when  folded,  it  could  best  protect  the 
bud. 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    217 

The  morning-glory,  you   see,  is  as  wise  as  it  is 
beautiful. 


WHY  ARE  THE  FLOWERS  SO  LARGE  AND  BRIGHT? 


WHY  are  the  flowers  so  large  and  bright? 

We  cannot  say  that  they  were  always  so.     It  is 
probable  they  were  not. 
But     good     Mother 
Nature  has  watched 
over  them  as  they  came  upon 
the  earth,  and  she  has  lov- 
ingly made  them  so  large  and 
bright. 

How  could  she  do  this?  Let  us 
see.  Here  is  a  tangle  of  plants. 
They  all  bear  flowers  and  all  set 
seeds.  Some  are  stronger  and  more 
beautiful  than  others.  The  seeds 
fall  to  the  ground.  Those  from 
strong  and  beautiful  plants  are  larger 
and  stronger  than  the  others.  After  a  while  the  seeds 
sprout.  Not  all  do  this,  however.  The  very  weak- 
est do  not  sprout.  Dear  Mother  Nature  has  other 
work  for  them.  "  You  are  not  suited  to  struggle  in 
the  earth  with  the  strong  seeds,  dears,"  she  whispers 


218 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    219 

and  lays  them  to  rest.  They  do  not  wake  up ;  the 
materials  in  them  change.  These  materials  let  go 
of  each  other ;  they  depart  from  the  seed ;  some  as 
gases  float  off  in  the  air ;  others  as  minerals  sink  in 
the  earth.  The  gases  and  the  minerals  are  not  lost. 
They  join  some  other  plant  and  help  to  make  it 
strong. 

"It  is  better  to  help  another  than  to  try  to  grow 
yourselves,"  Mother  Nature  whispers  to  these  little 
seeds  that  could  not  sprout.  And  they  are  happy. 
They  are  glad  to  change  into  gases  and  minerals  and 
help  another  plant  to  grow. 

Many  of  the  seeds  sprout,  but  not  all  grow  up  and 
blossom.  There  is  not  room  in  the  earth  for  all  the 
seeds  to  grow ;  there  is  not  food  enough  in  the  air 
to  feed  so  many.  Mother  Nature  with  her  kind  eye 
looks  over  the  growing  plants. 

She  smiles  and  shakes  her  head  at  those  trying  to 
grow  in  shady  places. 

"  No,  dears."  she  whispers,  "  there  is  other  work 
for  you  to  do."  Then  the  shaded  seedlings  do  not 
try  any  more  to  grow  into  plants.  They  give  up  the 
materials  they  have  collected  to  the  little  brothers 
and  sisters  who  have  started  in  the  good  ground  and 
the  sunlight. 

They  fade  away,  but  they  are  happy,  for  they,  too, 


220  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

are  doing  their  work.  The  materials  in  them  let  go 
of  each  other.  They  change  into  gases  and  float  off 
in  the  air,  or  to  minerals  and  other  substances  and 
sink  to  the  ground.  These  gases  and  solid  substances 
pass  into  other  plants  and  help  make  them  strong. 

"It  is  better  to  help  another  than  to  do  poor  work 
alone,  dears/'  Mother  Nature  whispers,  as  she  lays 
them  to  rest. 

Then  she  visits  all  the  weak  plants,  and  all  those 
in  poor  soil  or  in  too  much  light  or  too  much  shade, 
and  lays  them  to  rest.  Their  materials  go  to  nourish 
the  strong  plants,  who  are  doing  good  work  in  the 
world  and  growing  in  beauty.  Not  all  the  plants 
that  live  to  blossom  are  good  alike.  Some  are  better 
than  others,  but  Mother  Nature  lets  them  grow  if 
they  are  strong  enough  and  can  find  food.  At  last 
the  blooming  comes.  The  flowers  do  their  best. 
The  strong  ones  make  large,  bright  flowers  full  of 
color  and  full  of  sweetness.  Mother  Nature  smiles 
at  them  and  is  pleased.  The  weaker  flowers  do  their 
best;  they  are  not  so  bright  nor  so  large.  Mother 
Nature  smiles  at  them,  for  she  loves  them,  too,  and 
she  will  tell  them  what  to  do.  The  bees  come  and 
fly  to  the  brighter  flowers  ;  they  have  rich,  abundant 
pollen  and  rich  nectar.  The  bees  know  this;  they 
do  not  care  so  much  for  the  duller,  smaller  flowers. 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    221 


When  the  bees  do  not  come,  Mother  Nature  whis- 
pers to  the  little  flowers,  "  Never  mind,  dears,  there 
is  work  for  you  to  do."  So  they  are  happy,  though 
their  ovules  get  no  pollen  and  they  set  no  seeds. 
They  are  happy  to  do  the  work  dear  Mother  Nature 
has  for  them  to  do. 


strong  flowers  set 
eeds ;  they  are 
and  they  have 
been  well  fertilized.  The 
weak  flowers  set  few 
seeds;  they  are  not 
strong  to  make  many  seeds,  and 
they  have  not  been  well  fertilized. 
So  year  by  year  and  century  by 
century  Mother  Nature  watches 
her  plants  and  encourages  the 
strong  to  grow  and  helps  the  weak  to  find  other 
work. 

And  this  is  why  the  flowers  are  so  bright. 


222  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

Mother  Nature  selects  those  that  are  to  grow  and 
blossom  and  sends  the  rest  to  help  them.  This  is 
what  we  call  natural  selection,  and  this  is  what 
makes  the  earth  so  beautiful.  Only  the  best  con- 
tinue to  grow ;  the  others  are  glad  to  help  them. 


HOW  MOTHER  NATURE   MAKES  NEW  FLOWERS. 


ONCE  upon  a  time  there  lived  a  little  plant  in  a 
marshy  place.  We  will  call  it  Primus,  not  because 
that  was  the  very  first  form  of  the  plant,  for  it  was 
not,  but  because  that  was  its  form  when  we  first 
saw  it. 

It  had  five  small  yellow  petals,  five  small  stamens, 
and  an  ovary. 

When  its  seeds  were  ripe,  along  came  a  great  wind 
and  blew  them  away  from  the  marsh  upon  the  dry 
land  at  the  edge. 

Poor  little  seeds,  they  were  out  of  their  familiar 
wet  marsh  and  they  could  not  grow.  But  they  did 
their  best.  Some  of  them  managed  to  sprout,  but 
soon  they  found  the  earth  too  dry  and  the  sun  too 
hot ;  so  they  said,  "  We  will  turn  to  other  work ; 
we  will  help  the  other  plants  and  not  try  to  grow 
ourselves." 

So  they  changed  into  gases  and  minerals  and  other 
substances.  But  a  few  of  the  seeds  continued  to 
grow. 


223 


224  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

They  blossomed  and  bore  seeds,  but  they  were  not 
just  like  the  plants  in  the  marsh.  Mother  Nature 
had  helped  them  get  a  tougher  skin  and  taught  them 
how  to  shut  tightly  their  pores  in  dry  weather,  so 
that  the  water  within  them  could  not  escape. 

You  see,  they  were  already  different  from  their 
parents,  though  you  might  not  have  noticed  it  if 
you  had  seen  them,  the  difference  was  so  slight. 
The  seeds  of  these  new  plants  sprouted  the  next 
season.  They  did  not  have  a  hard  time  to  grow. 
They  knew  just  what  to  do,  and  the  best  and  strong- 
est of  them  grew  a  few  hairs  to  help  cover  up  the 
pores,  so  the  water  would  not  go  out  too  fast. 

It  happened  to  be  a  very  hot,  dry  season,  and  all 
the  plants  but  these  hairy  ones  stopped  growing. 
They  changed  into  gases  and  minerals  and  other  sub- 
stances to  help  the  other  plants.  The  hairy  people 
got  through  the  dry  season  very  well.  They  set  a 
good  many  seeds,  and  these  seeds  sprouted.  The 
new  plants  remembered  about  the  hairs  and  had 
plenty  of  them.  Some  were  covered  all  over  with 
a  soft  down. 

And  it  was  well  they  were,  for  it  was  a  very  hot, 
dry  season,  and  all  but  the  downy  ones  stopped 
growing  and  changed  into  minerals  and  gases  and 
other  substances  to  help  the  others.  The  seeds  of 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    225 

the  downy  plants  blew  far  over  the  dry  land,  far 
away  from  the  marsh ;  but  they  had  learned  to  live 
in  the  dry  soil,  and  if  you  had  found  these  downy 
people,  you  would  hardly  have  known  they  were 
descended  from  the  smooth,  juicy,  large-leaved  marsh 
plants.  Their  stems  were  hard  and  tough  and  their 
leaves  stiff  and  small.  We  can  no  longer  call  them 
Primus,  they  are  so  changed. 

Let  us  call  them  Secundus.  Secundus  had  small 
yellow  flowers,  like  the  marsh  plants  it  was  descended 
from.  But  one  day  some  of  the  seeds  of  Secundus 
blew  into  the  edge  of  a  wood  where  the  soil  was  rich 
and  the  air  damp.  This  just  suited  the  Secundus 
seeds,  and  they  grew  into  very  thrifty  plants  indeed. 
They  had  so  much  sap  and  grew  so  luxuriantly  that 
their  petals  were  twice  as  large  as  was  usual  with 
Secundus  petals.  These  fine  showy  flowers  also  pos- 
sessed a  great  deal  of  nectar,  they  had  so  much  sap. 
Of  course  the  bees  came  to  them,  and  they  were  well 
fertilized.  They  set  many  seeds.  The  next  year 
these  strong  seeds  were  able  to  grow  even  when 
their  neighbors  were  not,  and  the  plants  that  came 
from  these  seeds  also  had  large  showy  flowers. 

These  stronger  plants  held  their  own,  you  may  be 
sure,  and  at  last  there  was  more  of  them  than  of  the 
small-flowered  plants.  It  was  well  for  them  this 


226  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR    FRIENDS. 

was  so,  for  there  came  several  bad  seasons  when 
nothing  was  just  right  for  these  plants.  It  was 
cold  and  stormy,  and  only  the  very  strongest  lived 
through  it.  But  they  managed  to  survive,  and  their 
flowers  were  large  and  showy. 

All  the  weaker  plants  with  smaller  flowers  were 
killed  out,  and  only  these  large-flowered  ones  re- 
mained. They  were  very  different  from  their  ances- 
tors the  marsh  plants,  and  we  shall  have  to  call 
them  Tertius. 

One  day  some  of  the  seeds  of  Tertius  were  blown 
into  a  new  kind  of  soil ;  they  sucked  up  the  juices 
of  this  new  soil,  and  lo  !  some  of  their  flowers  opened 
white  instead  of  yellow.  It  so  happened  that  the 
white-flowered  plants  were  stronger  than  the  others. 
The  bees  liked  them,  too ;  for,  being  so  strong  and  full 
of  sap,  they  made  plenty  of  honey.  So  these  white- 
flowered  ones  increased  in  numbers  very  greatly. 
At  last  only  the  white  ones  could  be  found ;  the  yel- 
low ones  had  gradually  given  way  before  them  until 
no  yellow  ones  were  left. 

So  we  will  call  the  white-flowered  people  Quartus. 

Quartus  lived  a  long  time,  each  year  bearing  seeds, 
the  strongest  and  best  of  which  grew  up  and  bore 
flowers. 

One  day  some  of  Quartus'  seeds  were  blown  into 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    227 

a  hot,  sandy  place  ;  this  almost  killed  them,  but  some 
of  them  managed  to  grow. 

•  Their  leaves  were  smaller  and  stiffer  than  ever 
before,  but  they  had  a  great  many  of  them,  and 
their  flowers  were  large  and  white.  They  grew  to 
like  the  sandy  soil,  and  what  they  got  from  it 
changed  their  sap  in  some  way  so  their  petals  were 
delicately  tinged  with  pink.  The  bees  liked  these 
pink  flowers ;  perhaps  their  honey  was  a  little  richer ; 
perhaps  they  could  see  them  better.  However  that 
may  be,  the  bees  almost  deserted  the  white-blossomed 
plants  and  visited  the  pink  ones.  So  the  white 
flowers  set  few  seeds  and  the  pink  flowers  many. 
When  the  seeds  sprouted,  the  pink  ones  were  the 
strongest,  because  in  their  change  of  color  there  was 
somehow  added  a  change  in  strength ;  they  were 
stronger  than  the  white  flowers.  They  grew  fast 
and  took  the  materials  from  the  earth  and  the  air; 
and  when  the  white  flowers  saw  this,  they  said, 
"It  is  their  turn  now,"  so  they  changed  into  gases 
and  minerals  and  other  things  and  helped  the  pink 
flowers  to  grow. 

Soon  there  were  no  more  white  flowers  to  be  seen ; 
they  had  stopped  growing,  and  only  the  pink  ones 
kept  on,  so  we  shall  have  to  call  these  pink  flowers 
Quintus. 


228  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

But  a  great  danger  threatened  Quintus.  Cows 
and  goats  and  sheep  bit  oft'  their  leaves.  They  ate 
so  much  of  them  that  many  plants  were  killed  out- 
right. Only  the  stiffest  and  hardest  were  left  to 
blossom  and  set  seed.  The  seeds  of  these  plants 
with  the  stiff  leaves  and  stems  grew  into  other  stiff- 
stemmed  and  stiff-leaved  plants.  The  cattle  browsed 
the  tenderest  of  these  and  again  left  the  stiffest. 
This  went  on  for  many  years,  the  plants  growing 
stiffer  and  harder  each  year.  Some  of  them  got  so 
stiff  and  hard  that  they  threw  out  prickles  all  over 
their  stems. 

These  prickly  ones  were  not  eaten,  and  in  time 
you  would  have  found  them  grown  into  woody 
bushes  with  prickly  stems. 

We  shall  have  to  call  these  Sextus. 

Sextus  spread  all  over  the  sandy  plains.  Hardly 
any  other  plant  was  to  be  seen.  The  strong  Sextus 
seeds  sprouted  and  took  the  materials  in  the  earth 
and  the  air,  and  the  other  seeds  that  happened  to  be 
blown  among  them  did  not  grow ;  they  changed  into 
gases  and  minerals  and  other  substances  and  helped 
the  Sextus  plants  to  grow. 

One  day  some  Sextus  seeds  blew  upon  good,  rich, 
damp  soil,  and  there  they  sprouted  and  grew.  They 
had  plenty  of  water,  and  there  were  no  cattle  to  dis- 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    229 

turb  them;  so  those  with  the  fewest  prickles  were 
the  best  oft',  because  they  could  use  the  food  material 
to  make  larger  flowers  instead  of  prickles.  So  the 
plants  with  fewer  prickles  had  larger  flowers  and 
better  seeds,  and  these  seeds  sprouted  and  grew,  and 
the  others  gave  way  before  them.  In  the  course  of 
time  these  plants  growing  on  the  rich  soil  lost  their 
prickles,  and  their  flowers  were  large  and  very  deep 
pink ;  in  fact,  some  of  them  were  a  bright  red. 

These  bright-red  flowers  attracted  the  bees,  and 
so  they  lived  on  and  set  seed.  These  we  must  call 
Septimus. 

For  some  reason  some  of  the  seeds  of  the  Septimus 
flowers  developed  unusually  thrifty  plants. 

These  plants  had  flowers  with  petals  so  full  of  sap 
they  overlapped,  and  finally,  just  because  they  were 
so  full  of  the  growing  spirit,  the  edges  of  the  petals 
grew  together. 

Finally,  the  flowers  with  the  edges  grown  together 
were  the  most  successful.  The  tube  their  flowers 
made  kept  the  nectar  for  the  bees,  and  the  bees 
liked  to  go  into  these  red  bells.  You  see  what  had 
happened :  the  flowers  were  no  longer  polypetalous. 
Their  petals  had  grown  together ;  they  were  gamo- 
petalous.  Their  corollas  formed  snug  tubes,  some- 
thing like  a  morning-glory  corolla,  for  the  bees. 


230  FLOWERS  AND   THEIR   FRIENDS. 

We  shall  have  to  call  these  people  Octamus. 

And  we  will  not  follow  them  any  farther,  only  be 
sure  they  kept  on  changing  ever  and  ever.  When- 
ever the  seeds  fell  in  a  new  soil,  they  had  to  change 
or  die.  The  reason  they  could  change  so  is  because 
no  two  things  are  ever  just  alike,  and  out  of  a  great 
many  plants  some  might  be  fitted  to  survive  in 
the  new  surroundings.  These  would  live,  and  their 
descendants  would  be  like  them,  but  they  would  be 
different  from  their  ancestors. 

In  some  such  way,  no  doubt,  the  many  different 
kinds  of  flowers  have  come  into  existence. 

If  you  ask  me  for  the  exact  name  of  our  plant 
that  has  changed  so  many  times,  I  cannot  tell  you, 
for  I  do  not  know. 

But  that,  we  believe,  is  Mother  Nature's  way  of 
making  new  flowers. 


TONGUES  AND  TUBES. 


A  FLOWER  tube  is  a  most  convenient  and  safe  place 
to  keep  stamens  and  nectar.  If  it  is  protected  by 
scales  or  hairs  or  a  sticky  juice,  as  is  often  the  case, 
the  ants  and  other  small  insects  are 
given  a  gentle  but  convincing  hint  to 
keep  out.  They  might  readily  infer 
their  presence  is  not  wanted,  and 
though  it  may  hurt  their  feelings  a 
little,  they  have  nothing  to  do  but 
obey. 

Some  flowers  like  ants  and  little  crawl- 
ing insects,  but  they  have  open,  spreading 
corollas  with  the  nectars  easily  reached ; 
but  you  may  be  sure  a  flower  with  a  tube 
is  no  friend  to  them. 

Its  tube  says  "  keep  out "  as  plainly  as 
though  it  had  put  out  a  printed  sign,  and 
then  a  tube  is  a  sign  anybody  in  the  insect 
world  can  read,  no  matter  what  language  he  may 
speak  or  whether  he   knows  his  letters. 


231 


232  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

But  tubes  are  not  intended  to  keep  all  visitors 
away, — far  from  it. 

They  are  as  much  an  invitation  to  one  kind  of 
insect  as  they  are  a  request  to  "  keep  off  these 
premises"  to  another.  If  you  happen  to  be  a  large 
insect  with  a  long  tongue,  you  will  be  sure  to  find 
a  welcome  in  many  a  flower  with  a  tube.  And  no 
doubt,  if  you  are  fond  of  honey  and  are  industri- 
ous about  collecting  it,  you  will  find  that  the  flower 
whose  nectar  you  like  the  very  best  and  which  you 
visit  the  oftenest  has  a  tube  just  the  same  shape 
and  size  as  your  tongue;  and  what  is  more,  it 
will  be  in  the  most  convenient  position  for  you 
to  reach  it. 

It  seems  to  be  your  flower,  and  no  doubt  it  is,  for 
flowers  have  a  way  of  making  their  tubes  to  fit  the 
tongues  of  those  who  love  them  best.  Not  that  they 
do  all  the  fitting,  for  no  doubt  the  tongues  also  grow 
to  fit  the  flowers. 

Of  course  other  insects  with  similar  tongues  can 
get  the  honey  too,  and  a  good  many,  whose  tongues 
are  quite  different,  can  reach  more  or  less  of  it ;  but 
the  bulk  of  the  honey  is  for  the  favorite  visitor.  He 
can  reach  clear  to  the  bottom  of  the  nectary,  and  in 
some  cases,  where  the  favorite  insect  has  a  very  long 
and  very  slender  tongue,  the  spur,  or  tube,  will  be  so 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    233 

long  and  slender  that  none  but  that  particular  kind 
of  insect  can  get  the  honey  at  all. 

Everybody  who  lives  in  New  England,  and  a  good 
many  who  do  not,  knows  the  white  azalea,  often 
called  swamp  honeysuckle. 

Swamp  honeysuckle  and  the  large  night-flying 
moths  are  great  friends.  The  azalea  has  provided 
honey  for  the  fellows,  and  protects  it,  too,  against 
other  visitors,  all  but  the  bees  and  humming  birds. 
The  humming  birds  are  welcome,  and  the  bees  have 
a  way  of  coming  wrhether  they  are  welcome  or  not. 

If  you  go  just  at  dark  to  where  the  azaleas  are 
blooming,  you  will  not  see  the  moths,  but  you  will 
hear  them.  The  chief  sounds  in  the  woods  are  the 
rustling  of  twigs  and  leaves  in  the  breeze,  the  calling 
of  frogs  from  the  ponds,  the  noises  of  the  insects, 
and  the  voices  of  the  night-flying  birds.  Then  all  at 
once  there  comes  another  sound,  —  a  steady  buzz-z-z 
that  draws  nearer  and  nearer  until  it  seems  to  be 
close  to  your  ear.  This  is  the  moth  come  to  visit 
the  honeysuckle.  And,  no  doubt,  the  honeysuckle 
is  glad  to  feel  the  breeze  of  these  fanning  wings  and 
feel  the  long  tongue  enter  the  tube,  for  the  moth's 
body  touches  the  out-reaching  stigma  and  leaves 
there  pollen  from  some  other  flower  whose  honey  it 
has  enjoyed.  From  the  stamens  it  detaches  pollen 


234 


FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 


grains  to  carry  to  another  flower ;  and  this,  too,  no 
doubt,  gives  happiness  to  the  azalea,  for  it  makes  its 
pollen,  not  for  its  own  use,  but  for  the  sake  of  its 
azalea  friends. 

You  see,  the  azalea  has  long,  upturned  filaments 
that  reach  far  out  of  the  tube,  and  the  style  is 
yet  longer,  so  that  only  a  large  insect  or  a  hum- 
ming    bird,     collecting 
honey    while     on     the 
wing,   can    really    give 
pollen  to  the  stigma. 

Bees   alight   back   of 
the    anthers    and    take 
the  honey.  If  they  want 
pollen    they    collect    it 
from    the 
stamens 
without 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    235 

touching  the  stigma,  except  once  in  a  while  by 
accident,  as  it  were.  So  however  much  the  ma- 
jority of  flowers  may  love  and  respect  the  bee,  our 
azalea  has  no  liking  for  her.  Besides,  the  bee  has 
a  bad  habit  of  biting  a  hole  in  the  flower  tube  and 
getting  the  honey  that  way.  This  would  be  a  thor- 
oughly disreputable  performance  on  the  part  of  any 
insect,  and  if  bees  are  not  ashamed  of  it  they  ought 
to  be. 

The  azalea  does  several  things  for  the  moth  it 
loves.  It  may  be  its  beautiful  white  color  is  for  his 
sake ;  anyway,  if  the  flower  were  not  white  the 
moth  would  not  be  likely  to  find  it,  since  he  flies 
abroad  after  the  birds  have  gone  to  rest, —  that  is,  in 
the  evening,  when  it  is  dark  in  the  damp  thickets 
where  the  honeysuckle  loves  to  grow.  Azalea  has  a 
sweet  white  corolla  with  a  long,  slender  tube  con- 
taining nectar  that  moth  or  humming  bird  can  reach, 
but  which  bees  cannot  reach.  Watch  a  bee  try  some 
time.  If  the  flower  is  between  you  and  the  light, 
you  can  see  the  bee's  brown  tongue  through  the 
flower  tube ;  she  appears  to  be  standing  on  her  toes 
and  reaching  in  as  far  as  she  can ;  she  darts  out  her 
tongue  to  its  full  length,  and  you  can  see  it  wriggling 
and  straining  to  get  to  the  abundant  honey  low  down 
in  the  flower  tube.  But  there  is  no  use  trying ;  the 


236 


FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 


tongue  is  too  short  and  the  tube  too  long.  The 
honeysuckle  tube  was  not  made  to  fit  the  bee's 
tongue,  and  the  bee  can  get  only  the  outer  rim  of 
the  honey.  Perhaps  this  is  why  the  bee  so  often 
breaks  in  the  back  way. 

Besides  being  white,  the  azalea  flowers  grow  in 
clusters,  which  makes  them  yet  more  visible  in  the 
dusk.  They  exhale  a  delicious  and  far-reaching  per- 
fume too,  and  this  is  a  note  of  invitation  to  the 
moths. 

Instead  of  writing  a  note  on  a  sheet  of  perfumed 
paper,  the  honeysuckle  simply  sends  the  perfume 
without  the  paper,  and  the  moth  understands  the 
message  and  knows  the  white 
azalea  "  requests  the  pleasure  "  of 
his  company  that  evening,  and  he 
puts  on  his  best  manners,  since 
he  cannot  change  his  clothes,  and 
goes. 

The  white  azalea  is  so  very 
sweet  and  so  pretty,  it  would 
not  be  strange  if  other  uninvited 
guests  than  bees  were  to  visit  it. 
No  doubt,  the  ants  and  bugs  arid 
gnats  and  flies  would  be  glad  to, 
but  the  azalea  has  a  very  inhospi- 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    237 

table  way  of  receiving  such  would-be  guests.  All 
over  the  outside  of  the  lower  part  of  the  white  tube 
and  running  in  a  line  to  the  very  tips  of  the  petals 
are  tiny  white  hairs  with  black  tips. 

These  are  azalea's  body  guard.  Each  tip  exudes  a 
drop  of  sticky  liquid. 

Fine,  sticky  hairs  cover  the  stems  and  the  leaves 
too ;  so  the  unfortunate  insect  that  tries  to  crawl  up 
to  the  flower  is  sure  to  get  wings  and  legs  hopelessly 
entangled  and  "stuck  together. 

Only  large  fellows,  like  bees,  who  are  strong  enough 
to  pull  themselves  free  and  clean  off  their  legs,  are 
able  to  defy  this  body  guard.  You  will  sometimes 
meet  our  sweet  azalea  covered  on  the  outside  with 
little  marauders  who  wanted  to  steal  her  honey  but 
could  not,  because*  the  body  guard  caught  them  and 
stuck  them  fast. 

Not  all  flowers  with  tubes  have  succeeded  as  well 
as  azalea  in  keeping  their  honey  for  the  visitors  who 
can  do  them  the  most  good.  Yet  many  have  tried. 

Look  at  the  morning-glory,  for  instance;  it  has 
hairs  at  the  entrance  to  the  nectaries  which  the  ants 
cannot  readily  pass,  but  which  the  bees  can  push 
aside.  The  openings  to  the  nectary  are  large  enough 
readily  to  admit  the  tongue  of  a  bee,  and  the  dis- 
tance into  the  nectar  is  about  the  length  of  a  bee's 


238  FLOWERS  AND    THEIR   FRIENDS. 

tongue ;  but  there  are  no  sticky  guards  to  preserve 
the  honey,  for  the  bees  and  small  beetles  and  other 
tiny  insects  often  crawl  into  the  tube  and  eat  the 
honey  and  even  devour  the  flower  itself. 

Tropaeolum  has  a  fine  large  tube  full  of  rich  honey 
for  bees  and  humming  birds.  This  tube  no  doubt 
corresponds  to  some  tongue  or  bird-bill  in  her  own 


EVEM.NG  PKIMKOSK. 


South  America.  But  in  our  country  the  bees  answer 
very  well.  The  bumblebee  is  fond  of  Tropseolum 
honey  and  fertilizes  the  flower,  while  an  occasional 
ruby  throat  may  be  seen  taking  a  sip. 

Jewelweed's  horn  is  a  humming  bird  tube  and  a 
bee  tube,  too.      The  flowers  are  so  delicately  bal- 


STORIES  ABOUT  ALL  SORTS  OF  THINGS.    239 

anced  on  tiny  stalks  that  wingless  insects  would  not 
find  an  easy  entrance. 

Pelargonium,  too,  has  a  tube  suited  to  some  long 
and  slim-tongued  visitor.  In  her  own  native  land  in 
far-away  Africa  she  probably  loves  the  butterflies 
that  live  there,  who  also  love  her,  and  so  they  have 
grown  tongue  and  tube  to  fit  each  other.  For  the 
flower  is  not  the  only  one  to  change :  the  insect 
changes  to  suit  the  flower  at  the  same  time  that  the 
flower  changes  to  suit  the  insect.  They  grow  to  fit 
each  other/ 

Wherever  you  see  a  flowTer  tube  you  may  be  sure 
there  is  somewhere  a  tongue  to  fit  it. 


GLOSSAET. 


L.  =  Latin.      A.-S.  =  Anglo-Saxon. 


A. 

Acheloiis,  ?7.      A  river  god  with  whom  Hercules  wrestled.      Like 

Proteus,  Acheloiis  could  change  his  shape  ;  he  became  a  serpent 

and  a  bull,  but  Hercules  vanquished  him  nevertheless  and  tore 

off  his  horn,  which  became  the  horn  of  plenty. 
Alternate,  «.     L.  alter,  another  ;    one  following  another.     Said  of 

leaves  standing  singly  at  the  nodes  of  a  stem  ;  also  of  stamens 

that   stand  between   the  petals,  and  of  petals  that  are  placed 

between  the  sepals. 
Amalthea,  n.    In  Greek  mythology,  the  nurse  of  Jupiter,  probably  a 

goat. 
Amoeba,  n.     From  a  Greek  word  meaning  "change"  ;  the  name  of 

one  of  the  lowest  forms  of  life  ;  a  bit  of  living  protoplasm  capable 

of  existing  as  a  single  cell  and  of  changing  its  form  at  will. 
Ancestors,  n.     L.   antecessor,  a  foregoer ;    forefathers  ;    those  from 

whom  animals  or  plants  are  descended. 
Animal  cells,  n.     The  cells  or  minute  divisions  which  make  up  the 

animal  body. 
Animals,  n.     All  living  things  which  are  not  plants  are  animals.     In 

the  lower  forms  of  life  it  is  impossible  to  decide  whether  certain 

living  things  are  animals  or  plants. 
Anther,  n.     From   a  Greek  word  meaning  "flower";  that  part  of 

the  stamen  containing  the  pollen. 
Anther  cells,  n.     The  hollow  spaces  in  the  anther  where  the  pollen 

is  kept. 
Aristocrat,  n.     From  two  Greek  words  meaning  "  best  "  and  "  rule  "  ; 

one  belonging  to  the  best  in  a  community  ;  one  among  those  fit 

to  rule. 


242  GLOSSARY. 

Aristocratic,  a.     Like  an  aristocrat. 

Axil,  n.     L.  axilla,  little  armpit ;  the  angle  formed  between  the  upper 

side  of  a  leaf  and  the  stein  or  branch  to  which  it  is  attached. 
Azalea,  n.     The  name  of  a  plant.     The  "swamp  honeysuckle"  is 

not  a  honeysuckle,  but  is  an  azalea. 

B. 

Barb,  n.  I,,  barba,  a  beard  ;  a  tuft  of  hairs  ;  a  sharp  point  projecting 
backward  from  the  point  of  a  fish  hook  or  arrow  or  any  other 
sharp-pointed  instrument.  The  barb  prevents  the  instrument 
from  being  readily  withdrawn. 

Bark,  n.     The  outer  covering  of  the  stems  and  roots  of  woody  plants. 

Beak,  n.  The  bill  of  a  bird  ;  the  long,  projecting  point  in  the  fruit 
of  the  geraniums. 

Bloodroot,  n.  An  early  spring  flower.  A  pretty,  delicate,  white 
flower  opens  on  a  stem  that  comes  up  from  the  ground,  and  the 
roots,  when  wounded,  yield  a  blood-red  sap. 

Boer,  n.  D.  boer,  a  farmer  ;  a  peasant  ;  the  name  of  the  Dutch  colo- 
nists of  South  Africa.  They  are  principally  farmers  and  cattle 
raisers.  They  have  had  many  difficulties  with  the  English  settlers, 
in  some  of  which  blood  has  been  shed. 

Bract,  n.  L.  bractea,  a  thin  plate  of  metal;  gold-leaf.  Used  of  small, 
usually  thin,  leaf-like  parts,  and  often  found  near  a  flower  or 
flower  cluster. 

Bulb,  n.  L.  bulbus,  a  bulbous  root ;  an  onion  ;  the  name  of  the  under- 
ground, scale-covered  part  of  hyacinths,  etc. 

C. 

Cactus,  n.  From  a  Greek  word  meaning  "  a  prickly  plant "  ;  a  group 
of  plants  which  usually  grow  in  dry  places  and  have  prickles  or 
thorns  instead  of  leaves.  The  prickly  pear  grows  wild  in  north- 
ern latitudes,  and  others,  such  as  the  night-blooming  cereus,  are 
often  seen  in  hothouses. 

Callous,  a.  L.  callosus,  hard-skinned,  thickened  and  hardened.  Ap- 
plied to  a  hard  place  on  the  skin,  usually  the  result  of  friction. 


GLOSSARY.  243 

Calyx,  n.  From  a  Greek  word  meaning  "to  cover";  the  outer  set 
of  envelopes  which  form  the  perianth  of  a  flower.  If  the  perianth 
has  but  one  set  of  envelopes  it  is  called  the  calyx. 

Capillary  attraction,  n.  The  force  which  causes  liquids  to  disperse 
through  fabrics  or  tissues.  If  one  end  of  a  towel  be  placed  in  a 
bowl  of  water,  the  whole  towel  will  be  wet  in  course  of  time. 

Carbon,  n.  L.  carbo,  a  coal ;  a  substance  very  widely  distributed 
and  existing  under  various  forms.  Coal  is  one  form  of  carbon, 
graphite  another,  the  diamond  a  third.  One  atom  of  carbon 
combined  with  two  of  oxygen  form  carbon  dioxide. 

Carbon  dioxide,  n.  A  heavy  gas,  found  as  an  impurity  in  the  air. 
It  is  breathed  out  by  animals  and  plants,  and  absorbed  and  used 
as  a  food  by  plants. 

Castor  oil,  n.  The  oil  obtained  from  the  seeds  of  the  castor-oil  plant. 
Used  as  a  medicine  and  also  in  dyeing  cotton  certain  colors. 

Cell,  n.  L.  cella,  a  small  room  ;  a  case  or  cup  in  which  something  is 
held,  as  anther  cell,  ovary  cell,  honeycomb  cell ;  also  the  proto- 
plasmic particles  of  which  plants  and  animals  are  built  up. 

Candelabrum,  n.  L.  candela,  a  candle  ;  a  candle  stick  ;  any  branched 
candlestick.  A  candelabrum  rests  on  a  post,  while  a  chandelier 
is  suspended.  Candelabra  is  the  plural. 

Chasm,  n.  From  a  Greek  word  meaning  "  a  yawning  hollow  "  ;  a 
wide,  deep  cleft. 

Chlorophyll,  n.  From  two  Greek  words  meaning  "light  green  "  and 
"  leaf,"  leaf-green  ;  the  green  coloring  matter  of  vegetation. 

Columbine,  n.  L.  columba,  a  dove  ;  a  flowering  plant  which  gets  its 
name  from  the  fancied  resemblance  of  its  petals  and  sepals  to  the 
heads  of  doves  round  a  dish. 

Complexity,  n.  L.  com,  together,  plectere,  to  weave  ;  formed  by  a 
combination  of  simple  things. 

Convolvulaceae,  n.  The  name  of  a  family  of  plants  to  which  belong 
the  morning-glory  and  bindweed. 

Cornucopia,  n.     L.  cornu,  horn,  copia,  plenty  ;  horn  of  plenty. 

Corolla,  n.  L.  corolla,  a  little  crown  ;  a  garland  ;  the  floral  envelope 
within  the  calyx,  very  often  bright  colored. 

Cotton-seed  oil,  n.  An  oil  expressed  from  the  seeds  of  the  cotton 
plant  and,  when  purified,  used  instead  of  olive  oil. 

Crete,  n.     An  island  to  the  south  of  Greece. 


244  GLOSSARY. 

Crocus,  n.     An  early  spring  flower. 

Cross-fertilization,  n.     The  fertilization  of  the  ovules  of  one  flower 

by  the  pollen  of  another. 
Cross-fertilized,  a.     Fertilized  by  the  pollen  from  another  plant. 

D. 

Dew,  n.  The  moisture  of  the  air  when  condensed  on  any  cold  sur- 
face. Dew  does  not  fall ;  it  is  formed  wherever  moisture  in  the 
air  comes  in  contact  with  a  substance  colder  than  the  air.  Hence 
there  may  be  dew  on  the  under  as  well  as  the  upper  side  of  a 
leaf. 

Dissolve,  v.  L.  dis,  apart,  solvere,  loose  ;  to  separate  the  solid  par- 
ticles of  a  body  in  a  liquid  ;  to  melt.  Sugar  dissolves  in  water. 

Double  flowers,  n.  All  those  whose  petals  are  numerous.  Some- 
times the  stamens  are  changed  into  petals,  as  in  double  roses, 
and  sometimes  even  the  pistils  have  become  petals. 

E. 

Evaporation,  n.  The  conversion  of  a  solid  or  liquid  by  heat  into 
vapor.  Most  often  used  in  reference  to  the  conversion  of  water 
into  vapor.  The  warm  air  of  summer  causes  a  rapid  evaporation 
of  water  from  the  leaves  of  plants. 

F. 

Fayal,  n.     One  of  the  Azores  Islands,  west  of  Portugal. 

Ferns,  n.     A  division  of  flowreiiess  plants. 

Fertilize,  v.  L.  fertilis,  fruitful  ;  to  make  fruitful  or  productive,  in 
the  flower,  by  introducing  the  pollen  to  the  ovule,  enabling  them 
in  union  to  become  a  seed. 

Filament,  n.  L.  filum,  a  thread  ;  the  stem  of  an  anther,  often  thread- 
like in  form,  though  it  varies  greatly  ;  any  thread-like  part. 

Flower,  n.  L.flos,  a  flower  ;  the  part  of  a  plant  consisting  of  pistil, 
stamens,  corolla,  and  calyx.  Sometimes  the  corolla  is  wanting  ; 
sometimes  both  calyx  and  corolla  are  wanting.  Since  pistils  and 


GLOSSARY.  245 

stamens  are  the  most  important  part  of  the  flower,  an  organ  con- 
taining them  only  is  called  a  flower.  Sometimes  a  flower  consists 
of  only  stamens  or  only  pistils,  as  in  some  kinds  of  maple. 

Force  pump,  n.  A  pump  in  which  a  liquid  is  moved  by  pressure 
behind  instead  of  being  lifted,  as  is  the  case  in  the  ordinary 
pump. 

Fossil,  n.  Animal  or  vegetable  forms  which  have  been  long  buried 
in  the  earth  and  so  preserved  ;  the  forms  or  traces  of  animal  or 
vegetable  structures  which  have  been  preserved  in  rock. 

Fruit,  n.  The  matured  ovary  and  all  it  contains  or  is  incorporated 
with.  Sometimes  the  calyx  forms  part  of  the  fruit,  as  in  the 
apple. 

G. 

Gamopetalous,  a.  From  two  Greek  words  meaning  "  marriage  "  and 
"  leaf  "  or  "  petal "  ;  having  the  petals  united  or  grown  together. 
Where  a  flower  has  the  corolla  in  the  form  of  a  tube  it  is  called 
gamopetalous.  Several  petals  are  believed  to  be  united  into  one 
piece. 

Geranium,  n.  From  a  Greek  word  meaning  "  crane's  bill "  ;  the 
name  of  a  plant,  so  called  because  of  the  long,  projecting  beak  of 
the  seed-vessel. 

Gland,  n.  Certain  cells  upon  or  near  the  surface  of  a  plant  that 
secrete,  or  take  from  the  sap,  certain  substances.  The  nectary  is 
a  gland  that  secretes  a  sweet  juice. 

Great  pyramids  of  Egypt.  Three  large  pyramids  at  Ghizeh,  near 
Cairo,  in  Egypt.  The  largest  one  is  the  largest  work  of  man's 
hands  in  the  world.  The  pyramids  are  very  interesting  struc- 
tures, and  are  probably  the  tombs  of  the  ancient  rulers  of  Egypt. 

Guard  cells,  n.  The  curved  cells  that  guard  the  entrance  to  the  sto- 
mata,  or  breathing  pores,  of  leaves. 


Hairs,  n.     Fine,  thread-like  outgrowths  from  the  skin  of  plants  or 
animals. 


246  GLOSSARY. 

Halberd-shaped,  a.      Shaped  like  a  halberd,  or  old-time   battle-ax. 

The  bases  of  certain  leaves  are  called  halberd-shaped  from  their 

form. 
Hawthorne,  n.     A  small  tree  with  thorny  stems.     The  fruit  consists 

of  small  bright  red  berries  called  "  haws." 
Heart,  n.     The  principal  organ  for  the  circulation  of  the  blood  in 

man  and  other  animals. 
Hercules,  n.     In  Greek  and  Roman  mythology,  a  mighty  hero,  the 

god  of  strength  and   courage.      He   performed   many  feats  of 

strength,  chief   among   which   are   those  known   as  the  twelve 

labors  of  Hercules. 
Honeycomb  cells,  n.     The  wax  cells  made  by  bees  for  storing  the 

honey. 
Hyacinth,  n.     The  name  of  an  early  spring  flower ;  also  of  a  precious 

stone. 
Hydrogen,  n.     From  two  Greek  words  meaning  "  water  producing." 

It  is  a  very  light,  invisible  gas,  and  when  chemically  united  to 

oxygen,  two  parts  of  hydrogen  to  one  of  oxygen,  the  result  is 

water. 

I. 

Imbricated,  a.  L.  imber,  rain,  imbrex,  a  hollow  roof  tile  to  shed  rain  ; 
imbricare,  to  cover  with  roof  tiles  ;  lying  over  one  another,  or  lap- 
ping, like  tiles  on  a  roof.  Applied  to  sepals  that  overlap  over 
a  bud. 

Included,  a.  L.  in,  in,  claudere,  to  shut,  close  ;  confined  within  some- 
thing. Said  of  the  stamens  when  they  do  not  project  beyond  the 
mouth  of  the  corolla. 

Inherit,  v.  L.  tn,  in,  lieres,  heir  ;  to  take  by  descent  from  an  ances- 
tor. Plants,  like  people,  inherit  their  characteristics  from  their 
parents. 

Iron,  n.  A  very  abundant  and  very  important  metal.  In  small 
quantities  it  enters  into  the  composition  of  plants  and  animals. 

Irritate,  v.  L.  irritare,  to  excite  ;  to  excite  to  action.  Rubbing  irri- 
tates the  skin  and  causes  extra  blood  to  flow  to  the  spot  and  thus 
redden  it.  Rubbing  may  also  irritate  plant  tissues  and  cause  an 
extra  flow  of  sap  to  the  part  irritated. 


GLOSSARY.  247 

J- 

Jack-in-the-Pulpit.  The  name-of  a  plant  that  blooms  in  early  sum- 
mer. The  flowers  have  no  corollas  or  calyxes,  but  grow  clustered 
together  on  a  long  spike.  The  spike  of  flowers  is  surrounded  by 
a  large  overarching  bract. 

Juan  Fernandez,  n.  An  island,  west  of  Chili,  in  South  America.  It 
is  said  to  be  the  island  where  Robinson  Crusoe  lived. 

Jupiter,  n.  In  Roman  mythology,  the  chief  of  the  gods.  The  eagle 
is  his  favorite  bird,  and  he  is  often  represented  with  a  sheaf  of 
thunderbolts  in  his  hand. 

K. 

Knead,  v.     To  press  or  squeeze  until  thoroughly  mixed. 

L. 

Levant,  n.    The  name  given  to  a  section  of  country  east  of  Italy  and 

bordering  upon  the  Mediterranean  Sea. 
Lime,  n.    A  substance  found  in  the  earth  and  forming  the  hard  part 

of  bones,  and  also  found  in  the  composition  of  plants. 
Liriodendron,  n.    From  two  Greek  words  meaning  "  lily"  and  "  tree  "; 

a  North  American  tree,  also  called  the  tulip  tree.     Its  green  and 

yellow  flowers  look  a  little  like  a  tulip. 
Lungs,  n.     Two  spongy  organs  in  the  chest  by  means  of  which  the 

air  is  used  to  purify  the  blood  in  breathing. 

M. 

Magnesium,  n.     A  metal,  very  abundant  in  sea  water  and  in  the 

earth's  crust.     Also  found  in  the  composition  of   animals  and 

some  plants. 
Mandrake,  n.     A  plant  with  umbrella-like  leaves  and  a  yellow,  juicy 

fruit  as  large  as  an  egg. 
Microscope,   n.      From   two    Greek   words    meaning   "small"   and 

"  viewr "  ;    an    instrument  which  magnifies   and  renders  visible 

bodies  too  small  to  be  seen  by  the  naked  eye. 


248  GLOSSARY. 

Moth,  n.     An  insect  resembling  a  butterfly.     Moths  have  no  knobs 

on  their  antennae,  or  "  feelers,"  and  butterflies  have. 
Mullein,  n.     A  tall,  stout  weed  with  thick,  wooly  leaves. 

N. 

Naiads,  n.  In  Greek  and  Roman  mythology,  water  nymphs.  Beau- 
tiful young  goddesses  presiding  over  springs  and  streams. 

Nasturtium,  n.  L.  nasus,  nose,  tortus,  convulsed  ;  the  name  of  a 
plant,  so  called  because  of  its  acrid  juice  that  causes  a  stinging 
sensation  at  the  back  of  the  nose  when  it  is  tasted. 

Nectar,  n.  The  drink  of  the  gods  on  Mt.  Olympus.  The  honey  of 
flowers. 

Nectaries,  n.  The  receptacles  in  which  the  nectar  of  flowers  is  col- 
lected ;  also  the  gland  which  secretes  the  nectar. 

Neptune,  n.     In  Roman  mythology,  the  god  of  the  sea. 

Nettle,  n.     A  weed  armed  with  stinging  hairs. 

Nitrogen,  n.  A  colorless,  odorless,  tasteless  gas,  forming  about 
three-fourths  of  the  air  and  necessary  to  the  formation  of  all 
living  bodies,  whether  plant  or  animal. 

Nitrogenous  substances,  n.  Substances  in  which  nitrogen  is  one  of 
the  constituents. 

Node,  n.  L.  nodus,  a  knot  ;  the  part  of  a  stem  which  bears  a  leaf  or 
leaves.  It  is  often  a  little  larger  than  the  rest  of  the  stem. 


0. 

Octavus,  n.     L.  octavus,  eighth  ;  given  in  this  book  as  a  name  to  a 

suppositional  plant. 
Oil,  n.     From  a  Greek  word  meaning  "  olive  oil."     An  inflammable, 

greasy  liquid  extracted  from  certain  vegetables,  as  olives,  cotton 

seeds,  nuts,  etc. 

Olive  oil,  n.     The  oil  expressed  from  the  fruit  of  the  olive  tree. 
Orient,  n.     L.  oriens,  rising,  as  the  sun  ;  the  East,  the  part  of  the 

horizon   where   the    sun   rises ;    Eastern    countries,  particularly 

Turkey,  Persia,  Egypt,  India,  China,  etc. 
Ovary  cells,  n.     The  cells  which  build  up  the  ovary. 


GLOSSARY.  249 

Ovule,  n.    L.  ovum,  an  egg  ;  a  little  egg.    Applied  to  the  rudimentary 

seeds  of  plants,  which,  upon  fertilization  and  growth,  become  true 
*  seeds. 

Ovule  cells,  n.     The  cells  of  which  the  ovule  is  formed. 
Oxalis,  n.     From  a  Greek  word  meaning  "acid";   a  well-known 

plant,  one  form  of  which  is  called  "wood  sorrel."     It  is  called  , 

oxalis  because  of  its  acid  juice. 
Oxygen,  n.      One  of  the  gases  that  compose  the  air  and  which  is 

essential  to  life.     It  is  also  found  in  composition  in  the  tissues  of 

plants  and  animals. 

P. 

Pelargonium,  n.     From  a  Greek  word  meaning  "a  stork";  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Geranium  Family,  so  called  because  of  the  beaked 
seed-pods. 
Petal,  n.     From  a  Greek  word  meaning  "  a  leaf  ";  one  of  the  leaves 

of  a  corolla. 

Phosphorus,  n.  From  a  Greek  word  meaning  "  Lucifer,  the  morn- 
ing star  "  ;  a  solid  substance  which  is  luminous  in  the  dark.  It 
is  found  in  composition  in  the  bodies  of  animals  and  plants. 
Pioneer,  n.  L.  pes,  a  foot  ;  in  military  terms,  one  of  a  company  of 
foot  soldiers  who  march  before  an  army  with  implements  to  clear 
the  way.  Hence,  whoever  or  whatever  leads  or  prepares  the  way 
for  others  coming  after. 

Pistil,  n.  L.  pistillum,  a  pestle  ;  the  seed-bearing  organ  of  a  flower, 
composed  generally  of  three  parts,  ovary,  style,  and  stigma, 
and  called  pistil  because  of  its  shape,  which  often  resembles  a 
pestle. 

Plant  cells,  n.     The  cells  of  which  plants  are  built  up. 
PoUen,  n.     L.  pollen,  fine  flour  ;  the  dust  or  grains  of  fertilizing  mate- 
rial found  in  the  anthers  of  flowers. 

Pollen  cells,  n.     The  grains  of  pollen  ;  each  grain  is  a  separate  cell. 
Polypetalous,  a.     From  two  Greek   words   meaning  "many"    and 

"leaf."     Said  of  a  flower  having  two  or  more  separate  petals. 
Potash,    n.      A   combination   of   potassium,    carbon,    and   oxygen. 
Potash  in  various  forms  is  found  in  all  plants. 


250  GLOSSARY. 

Potassium,  n.  A  substance  found  in  combination  with  other  things 
in  the  earth's  crust,  and  in  the  form  of  potash,  an  important 
factor  in  the  substance  of  plants  and  animals. 

Potato,  n.  One  of  the  edible  tubers  of  the  potato  plant.  The 
potato  is  a  swollen  underground  stem,  the  eyes  being  the  nodes. 
The  potato  contains  a  large  amount  of  starch  and  is  a  valuable 
food.  The  potato  plant  is  a  native  of  the  Andes.  It  was  taken 
to  England  from  Virginia  in  1856. 

Prickles,  n.  A.-S.  prica,  a  sharp  point ;  small,  sharp-pointed 
growths  from  the  bark  of  plants. 

Primitive,  a.  L.  primus,  first ;  pertaining  to  the  beginning  or  origin 
of  a  thing.  In  botany,  beginning  to  take  form,  applied  to  an 
organ  or  structure  that  is  just  beginning  to  assume  form. 

Primus,  n.  L.  primus,  first ;  a  name  given  in  this  book  to  a  sup- 
positional plant. 

Probing,  n.  L.  probare,  to  test,  examine  ;  examining  by  means  of  a 
long,  pointed  instrument  or  probe.  The  bee  or  butterfly  probes 
for  nectar  with  its  long  tongue. 

Protean,  a.  Pertaining  to  Proteus ;  readily  assuming  different 
shapes. 

Proteus,  n.  In  classical  mythology,  a  sea  god  who  had  the  power  of 
assuming  different  shapes.  He  could  become  a  serpent  or  a 
cloud  or  a  bull  or  anything  he  chose  to  become. 

Protoplasm,  n.  From  two  words  meaning  "  first "  and  "  form."  A 
substance  resembling  the  white  of  an  egg  in  appearance,  composed 
of  carbon,  hydrogen,  oxygen,  nitrogen,  sulphur,  and  phosphorus. 
It  is  the  foundation  of  all  living  forms. 

Protoplasmic,  a.     Consisting  of  protoplasm. 


Q- 

Quartus,  n.  L.  quartus,  fourth  ;  the  name  given  in  this  book  to  a 
suppositional  plant. 

Quintus,  n.  L.  quintus,  fifth  ;  the  name  given  in  this  book  to  a  sup- 
positional plant. 


GLOSSARY.  251 

R. 

Rain,  n.  A.-S.  regn,  rain  :  the  water  falling  in  drops  through  the 
atmosphere.  Water  rises  as  vapor  from  the  moist  earth  and  the 
sea  ;  it  is  then  condensed  by  coming  in  contact  with  the  cold 
upper  air,  and  falls  to  the  earth  as  rain. 

Reproduced,  pp.  L.  re,  again,  producere,  to  produce,  to  bring  forth  ; 
produced  again,  having  formed  new  plants  or  animals  from 
those  already  existing. 

Retrogressed,  pp.    Went  backward. 

Retrogression,  n.  L.  retro,  backward,  gradi,  to  go  ;  the  act  of  going 
backward. 

Rhea,  n.  In  classical  mythology,  the  wife  of  Saturn  and  mother  of 
Jupiter. 

Ribs,  n.  The  bones  that  form  the  framework  of  the  chest  in  the 
higher  animals  ;  the  timbers  that  form  the  framework  of  a  ship  ; 
the  stiff  fibres  that  form  the  framework  of  a  leaf. 

Robinson  Crusoe,  n.  A  story  written  by  Daniel  Defoe  and  pub- 
lished in  1719.  The  adventures  of  Robinson  are  said  to  have 
been  suggested  by  the  life  of  Alexander  Selkirk,  who  was  ship- 
wrecked and  lived  for  four  years  on  the  desert  island  of  Juan 
Fernandez. 

Root,  n.  The  part  of  a  plant  that  usually  grows  down  into  the  soil, 
fixing  the  plant  and  absorbing  nutriment. 

Root  cap,  n.  The  hard  cap  which  covers  and  protects  the  growing 
tip  of  a  root. 

Root  hairs,  n.  The  fine  filaments  growing  from  the  skin  of  young 
roots  that  absorb  the  nutriment  for  plants. 

Rubythroat,  n.  The  name  of  the  North  American  humming  bird, 
so  called  because  of  the  bright  red  feathers  on  its  throat. 

S. 

Salamander,  n.  A  kind  of  lizard,  formerly  supposed  to  be  able  to 
live  in  the  fire. 

Salt,  n.  One  of  the  most  important  substances  in  the  world.  It  is 
necessary  to  the  existence  of  animals  and  is  one  of  the  constitu- 
ents of  many  plants. 


252  GLOSSARY. 

Sap,  n.  The  juice  of  plants.  It  is  to  them  what  the  blood  is  to 
animals. 

Saturn,  n.     In  classical  mythology,  the  father  of  Jupiter. 

Scales,  n.  A.-S.  scealu,  a  scale,  husk  ;  in  botany,  a  small,  rudimen- 
tary leaf,  scale-like  in  form.  Scales  cover  the  leaf  buds  and 
sometimes  the  flower  buds  ;  they  also  constitute  some  bulbs. 

Scape,  n.  L.  scapus,  shaft,  stalk  ;  the  long,  leafless  peduncle  which 
starts  from  the  ground  and  bears  flowers  at  the  top,  as  in  the 
hyacinth. 

Sceptre,  n.  L.  sceptrum,  a  staff  to  lean  on;  a  sceptre  ;  a  staff  of  office; 
the  staff  of  kingship. 

Secrete,  v.  L.  secernere,  to  separate  ;  to  form  from  the  materials  of 
the  sap  or  the  blood  a  new  substance.  The  organ  that  secretes  is 
called  a  gland. 

Secundus,  n.  L.  secundus,  second  ;  the  name  given  in  this  book  to 
a  suppositional  plant. 

Seed,  n.     The  fertilized  and  matured  ovule  of  a  flower. 

Seed  coat,  n.     The  outer  covering  to  a  seed. 

Seedlet,  n.     A  little  seed. 

Sepal,  n.  L.  separ,  separate  ;  one  of  the  separate  leaves  that  form 
the  calyx. 

Septimus,  n.  L.  Septimus,  seventh  ;  the  name  given  in  this  book  to 
a  suppositional  plant. 

Sextus,  n.  L.  sextus,  sixth;  a  name  given  in  this  book  to  a  supposi- 
tional plant. 

Shrub,  n.     A  woody,  branching  plant,  smaller  than  a  tree. 

Silica,  n.  L.  silex,  flint ;  a  substance  found  very  abundantly  in  the 
earth's  crust.  It  is  very  hard,  and  when  melted  forms  glass  ;  it 
is  found  in  solution  in  some  springs  and  is  taken  up  by  certain 
plants  and  deposited  on  or  near  the  surface. 

Skin,  n.     The  outside  covering  of  an  animal  or  plant. 

Skin  cells,  n.     The  cells  of  which  the  skin  is  made  up. 

Snowdrop,  n.  An  early  spring  flower  cultivated  in  gardens ;  it 
sometimes  blossoms  under  the  snow. 

Soda,  n.  A  compound  of  sodium,  carbon,  and  oxygen  ;  found  in  the 
composition  of  some  plants. 

Sodium,  n.  One  of  the  elements  of  common  salt,  and  also  found  in 
the  tissues  of  plants  and  animals. 


GLOSSARY.  253 

Sorrel,  n.     A.-S.  sur,  sour  ;  a  kind  of  plant  with  acid  leaves. 

Sphinx,  n.  In  Greek  mythology,  a  monster  with  the  head  of  a 
woman,  the  wings  of  an  eagle,  and  the  claws  of  a  lion  ;  she  sat 
on  a  rock  and  proposed  a  riddle  to  all  who  passed  and  killed 
those  who  could  not  guess  it.  The  Egyptian  sphinx  has  no 
wings  and  is  not  the  same  as  the  Greek  monster  ;  it  is  generally 
placed  in  rows  in  avenues  leading  to  temples,  and  the  largest  and 
most  famous  Egyptian  sphinx  is  the  Great  Sphinx  near  the  great 
pyramids  of  Ghizeh  ;  it  held  a  temple  between  its  paws. 

Spring  beauties,  n.     Pretty,  delicate,  and  early  spring  flowers. 

Spur,  n.  A  pointed  instrument  worn  on  the  heel  to  goad  a 
horse  ;  any  sharp  projection  formed  like  a  horseman's  spur. 

Stamen,  n.  L.  stamen,  thread,  string,  fibre  ;  the  floral  organ  con- 
taining the  fertilizing  pollen.  The  stamen,  like  the  pistil,  is 
believed  to  be  a  modified  leaf. 

Starch,  n.  A  substance  composed  of  carbon,  hydrogen,  and  oxygen, 
forming  one  of  the  principal  elements  in  plants  and  necessary  as 
food  to  animals. 

Stiffening  cells,  n.  The  woody  cells  and  other  tough-walled  cells 
that  serve  to  keep  the  shape  of  a  plant. 

Stigma,  n.  The  structure  at  the  top  of  the  style  where  the  pollen  is 
received. 

Stipules,  n.  L.  stipula,  a  stalk,  stem,  blade  ;  the  small,  leaf-like 
appendages  at  the  base  of  the  petiole  of  leaves. 

Stoma,  n.  From  a  Greek  word  meaning  "  mouth-opening "  ;  a 
small  opening  in  the  skin  of  leaves  and  young  stems  leading  to 
the  air  cavities  within  the  plant ;  a  breathing  pore. 

Stomata,  n.     The  plural  of  "  stoma." 

Strengthening  cells,  n.  The  cells  with  tough  or  hard  walls  that  serve 
to  give  firmness  and  support  to  plant  tissues. 

Suction,  n.     L.  sugere,  to  suck  ;  the  process  of  sucking. 

Sulphur,  n.  A  solid  substance  found  in  the  earth's  crust  in  certain 
places  ;  it  is  one  of  the  constituents  of  protoplasm,  and  although 
occurring  in  it  in  very  small  quantities,  it  is  essential. 

Sulphuric  acid,  n.  Oil  of  vitriol,  a  combination  of  hydrogen,  sul- 
phur, and  oxygen.  Sulphuric  acid  is  found  in  the  earth  and  in 
the  air  in  very  small  quantities,  and  is  the  source  from  which 
plants  as  a  rule  derive  their  sulphur. 


254  GLOSSARY. 


T. 

Tertius,  n.  L.  tertius,  third  ;  the  name  given  in  this  book  to  a  sup- 
positional plant. 

Thoreau,  n.  Henry  David  Thoreau,  an  American  author  of  the  present 
century,  wrote  a  number  of  delightful  books  on  nature. 

Tissue,  n.  L.  texere,  to  weave  ;  a  woven  fabric  ;  the  cellular  fabric 
of  plant  structures. 

Tropaeolum,  n.  From  a  Greek  word  meaning  "  a  turning,"  hence,  a 
turning  of  the  enemy,  a  defeat  ;  finally,  the  sign  of  a  defeat,  a 
trophy  ;  the  name  of  a  plant,  so  called  because  of  the  shield- 
shaped  leaves,  many  shields  together  suggesting  trophies  taken 
from  the  enemy. 

Tube  cells,  n.     The  cells  that  build  up  the  tubes  of  plants. 

Tuber,  n.  L.  tuber,  a  bump,  swelling  ;  a  thickened  portion  of  an 
underground  stem.  The  potato  is  a  tuber  ;  it  stores  up  starch 
for  the  use  of  the  growing  plant. 

Tubular  corolla,  n.  A  tube-shaped  corolla.  The  red  honeysuckle 
has  a  tubular  corolla. 

Tunic,  n.  L.  tunica,  a  tunic  ;  the  name  of  a  garment  worn  by  the 
Romans;  a  loose  flowing  robe;  hence,  any  garment  ;  a  name 
given  to  the  scaly  coverings  of  bulbs  like  the  onion  and  hya- 
cinth. 

Tunicated,  a.     Having  a  tunic. 

U. 

Underground  stems,  n.  Stems  that  grow  beneath  the  surface  of  the 
earth  and  look  more  or  less  like  roots.  They  can  always  be  dis- 
tinguished from  roots  by  the  presence  of  nodes. 

V. 

Variegated,  a.  L.  varius,  various,  agere,  to  make  ;  marked  with 
different  colors. 

Veins,  n.  L.  vena,  a  blood  vessel  ;  the  blood  vessels  or  channels 
through  which  the  blood  flows  to  the  heart  ;  the  stiff,  thread-like 
tubes  forming  the  framework  of  leaves,  petals,  sepals,  etc. 


GLOSSARY.  255 

Vine,  n.     L.  vinea,  a  grape  vine  ;  a  plant  with  a  stem  too  long  and 
flexible  to  stand  alone. 

W. 

Water,  n.     A  well-known  liquid  composed  of  two  parts  of  hydrogen 

to  one  of  oxygen. 
Wax,  n.     A.-S.  weax,  wax  ;  a  thick,  sticky  substance  made  by  bees 

for  constructing  their  cells  ;  substances  resembling  beeswax  in 

consistency. 

Whorl,  n.     A  ring  of  organs  from  the  same  center. 
Wood  cells,  n.     The  cells  of  which  wood  is  built  up. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


AN     INITIAL     FINE     OF    25     CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  5O  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $I.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


LD  21-50m-8.-32 


